title: Ripsaw music
text: # Ripsaw music
  
  Music of the Anglophone Caribbean :
  
  Genres :
  
  Benna
  
  Calypso
  
  Chutney
  
  Dancehall
  
  Dub
  
  Goombay
  
  Junkanoo
  
  Rake-and-scrape
  
  Ragga
  
  Rapso
  
  Reggae
  
  Ripsaw
  
  Rocksteady
  
  Scratch
  
  Ska
  
  Soca
  
  Spouge
  
  Steelpan :
  
  Regional music :
  
  vte :
  
  Ripsaw is a musical genre which originated in the Turks and Caicos Islands, specifically in the Middle and North Caicos. A very closely related variant, rake-and-scrape, is played in the Bahamas. Its most distinctive characteristic is the use of the common handsaw as the primary instrument, along with various kinds of drums, box guitar, concertina, triangle and accordion.
  
  The saw is played by scraping an object, usually an old knife blade, along the saw's teeth, while bending the saw to produce a different timbre. The sound is similar to a paper being ripped, and is believed to be the origin of the term ripsaw. Rake-and-scrape derives from the method used by a player to create sound from the saw.
  
  Though little is known for certain about ripsaw's genesis, two major theories include that the instrument was played to imitate the sound of the güiro, a Dominican and Haiti percussion instrument, and that Loyalist colonists in the United States brought their African slaves to the islands and these slaves invented the ripsaw to imitate the sound of the shekere instrument.
  
  In the Bahamas, Cat Island is the only place to celebrate rake-and-scrape on a large scale. During June's Labour Day celebration, the island holds a Cat Island Rake and Scrape festival.
  
  