The instrument is not often used in classical music, but it appears in the work of Arnold Schoenberg, Hans Werner Henze, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Ligeti and others.

The metal plate of the flexatone is hit alternatively on each side by wooden or rubber beaters or balls that are attached to a clock spring. It is still possible – and useful - to draw some conclusions from this general analysis of Flexatone use, as part of percussion in Reggae.

Musical bows are also found in Central and Southern Africa, with a likewise quivering, glissando sound to degrees, while the talking drum also has a changeable, “gliding” pitch. Also the newer New Roots artists, besides Chronixx, (Sizzla, Luciano, Bushman, Buju Banton, Anthony B. The creative genius in Dub, and its inventor, King Tubby, used it – as other producers, like Jammy, Lee “Scratch” Perry) – as extra sound in Dubs, even if not in the music of the original vocal song.

While the instrument has a very limited dynamic range, volume can be controlled by how vigorously or delicately the player shakes the Flexatone. The modern violin might have been invented as such in Northern Italy, but violin-like instruments were long common in several cultures, including in Africa. After listening Gregory Isaacs' Not The Way's intro, I think that is a flexatone also, only played with a stick, besides thumb.

In this stage, other percussion instruments, the said idiophones, were a kind of a side-path, though I practiced with it, and had quite some of these idiophones, using them and recording with them, alongside drums. While shaking the flexatone’s handle, the performer makes a low or high pitch sound that depends on the pressure from his thumb. Although the flexatone has a very limited dynamic range, its volume can be controlled by how delicate or vigorous the performer shakes the instrument. The “quivering” metal, glissando tone might fit in with that genre so rich in sound effects, although it is often as “introducing” a Dub tune, so mainly in the beginning or during transitions, when it is added, though in cases also throughout the song as part of its rhythmical structure.

Such rhythmic and musical knowledge tends to be present among percussionists with some experience, as those active in Reggae music, before and now. It is recommended that pitch designation should only be approximate, [3] as, "specific pitches are difficult but possible; glissandi without specific pitch are easily executed. However, when Khachaturyan came to the London Symphony Orchestra in the early 1970s he immediately ruled out the flexatone on sight, before a note had been played, and wanted a musical saw or nothing! Hans Werner Henze also used this instrument in his opera entitled The Elegy for Young Lovers in 1961. On it, the Flexatone is quite prominent, not “drowned in the mix”, as elsewhere, or only heard in the intro or bridges of songs, but actually “carrying” the song (with mainly a 5-3 pattern/riff).Some reggae percussionists (before and now) also like rattle sounds, such as from the “vibra-slap” instrument.

makes it absurd, alongside of course racist (here both anti-Semite, and anti-Black), and hateful, as could be expected. I am playing now for several years several percussion instruments, having started with serious lessons first in playing membranophones – or simpler said: hand drums – of Afro-Cuban origin: the well known Bongos and Conga. Percussion is still somewhat “drowned” in the relatively “fuller” sound of these Burning Spear albums (relatively many instruments used, percussion and otherwise).Relatively recently, I have already taken up playing the Flexatone too, learning more and more how to play it, and about its interesting musical possibilities.