During the last 150 years, txalaparta has been attested as a communication device used for funeral (hileta), celebration (jai) or the making of slaked lime (kare), or cider (sagardo).

Furthermore, stone (the group Gerla Beti called this variant harriparta) and metal tubes have been added, so widening the range of sounds and contrasts available.

Nowadays the boards have often been arranged to play notes and even melody along the lines of the score, which may on the one hand further widen for the txalapartaris the possibilities to sophisticate the music.

For example, the traditional opening phrase Sagardo Deia, meaning "the Cider Call", is frequently used and easily identifiable with only slight differences from some txalapartaris to others.

The former represents the balance (two beats of one of the players), while the latter names the person who tries other combinations that break it or twist it (herrena means limp).

[2] However, the person playing the regularity can nowadays become a balance-breaker, so triggering an argument between both sides of the performance that struggle to restore the balance.

As for the order of the hands, the first and the third beat may usually be struck with the same stick, so creating a pendulum like, come-and-go motion with the arms.

In the 60s, in step with the Basque cultural and musical revival movement, Josean and Juan Mari Beltran, a founder of the School of Hernani himself, took up txalaparta and encouraged its expansion.

After establishing the School of Hernani, a steady expansion of txalaparta ensued in the 80s among younger generations and out to other regions of the Basque Country.

Josu Goiri should be cited here, from Arrigorriaga, who adopted a fairly mystical approach on the instrument and has released several books on the topic.

Yet in an interview to Juan Mari Beltran, a pundit on the issue that did major field work and has afterwards elaborated on the topic, he holds that ttukuttunas (three-strike sets), even fours, were occasionally played by the last old txalaparta performers.

Therefore, some argue that doing so it is taking on a xylophone-like role devoid of its own primary musical features at the expense of adopting a subsidiary and decorating function, e.g. txalaparta in Kepa Junkera's band.

In a pursuit to get the most out of the materials, experimentation has been taken to new levels, like in the cavern of Mendukilo (Navarre), where site-specific txalaparta music recording provides a background for visits (as of March 2008) based on sounds created by playing with elements from the very grotto.

[6] Beyond the boundaries of music, the sculptor native from Usurbil (Gipuzkoa) Jose Luis Elexpe «Pelex» has turned txalaparta into the subject of his work.

Himself a pupil of the renowned txalaparta player Jexux Artze, the exhibition opened at Usurbil in May 2008 attempts to cross over the immovability of Elexpe's discipline.

Besides wood, metal is used to fashion figures representing txalapartaris, as well as playing with black&white, on the one hand, and colours, on the other, to stress different approaches.