Drum patterns. Anuak musical experience is usually accompanied by the drum. Drums seem to be an integral part of the musical experience if not the song itself. The rhythm of the songs seems to be in the beat pattern. Pulsations are strong often times accented with the stamping of feet or with the clapping of hands. Tempos are generally brisk with the Agwaga displaying greater drive and speed than the Obero. In the drumming for the Aguaga, Obero, and dancing songs, the lesser drums, the two smaller drums, maintain an even interlocking pattern. Above this, the drummer on the large drum improvises or seems to improvise within the accepted patterns of the genre. The drummer playing the larger drum adds triplets and cross rhythms using his hand stick, and elbows to punctuate and add rhythmic and tonal interest.
Stamped Idiophones: bottles and gourds. In small gatherings, such as an individual playing for himself or in a circle of friends, a gourd will be used as a drum. The gourd gives off a pleasant percussive sound when played by the hands of a performer. A freely improvised pattern using the tips of the fingers, the palm over the top and sides and other techniques of hitting and tapping are used.
One of the most interesting uses made of found sounds as percussion instruments were two bottles, one about twelve ounces and the other about twenty ounces played in a regular alternating pattern along with a gourd as an accompaniment to love songs and dancing songs in Peno. The placing of a finger over and then off the top of the larger bottle also causes a pitch change