Libby Larsen used three inspirations from her life to write Hambone. First, she was inspired by early rock and roll rhythms, particularly those written by Bo Diddley, from her high school days when she had her own rock band. The second inspiration is the African-American tradition of hamboning-clapping and slapping to create fun, new rhythms, and finally the melodies of the traditional cakewalk, reminiscent of Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk." The CD-ROM explores all three of these inspirations with various musical and visual examples, as well as video of the composer working in rehearsal with a band. The CD-ROM also explains African American oral traditions, and it links this piece to places all over the world, from Ghana and the Ivory Coast to Paris, France.