Following the popularity of 'Vuvuzela,' the plastic horn widely used by soccer fans at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, organizers have named 'Caxirola' the official instrument for the championship slated to be held in Brazil next year.
The loud, buzzing noise from a Vuvuzela created a big nuisance for players and fans watching the game on TV.
Caxirola, the official musical instrument for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is based on the African caxixi. The Maraca-like instrument was created by Carlinhos Brown, a Brazilian musician. Brown wanted to invent an instrument that is more subdued than the ear-splitting Vuvuzela.
In order to test the instrument's authenticity, Talita Pozzer and Stephan Paul of the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil studied the acoustics of the instrument. They found that a caxirola did not pose any threat to the user's ear.
For the study, researchers asked 22 volunteers to play the instrument, while a recording device placed near the ear of each subject measured the sound of the caxirola.
They found that people tend to either shake it horizontally or vertically. The instrument generated twice the amount of sound energy if shaken vertically than horizontally. After observing both the styles, researchers found that the sound pressure levels were equivalent to that of a normal conversation. It was approximately 45 decibels lower than that of the vuvuzela.
As a result, a user would need 30,000 caxirolas to produce the same sound pressure level as a single vuvuzela.
Paul is unsure whether caxirola's will be distributed during the 2014 World Cup because a ban has not yet been lifted against the instrument, according to a press release. Caxirola was banned for the Confederations Cup last summer after annoyed fans hurled the instrument on the field during a match in April.
The study will be presented at the 166th meeting of the Acoustic Society of America, held Dec. 2-6, 2013, in San Francisco, Calif.
