Choose your item:
Balafon:
Kora:
Djembé:
Doundoun:
Kenkini:
Sangban:
Krin:
Gongoma:

Back

The links are for navigating, Click to go back to the menu.
The links under the instrument need a faster connection or wait !

Click On the instrument to hear a sample!!

The Balofon also none as xylophone exist in almost all African countries.
It is in certain ways the same for African music as the drum is.
The xylophone can have resonators or not but always has wooden sticks to hit on with drumsticks (also wood)
With on one side a ball of rubber or leather.
The sort of wood depends of the region and kind of sound they wish for it, from a soft dark sound for soft wood to a hard and crystal sound of the harder type. There are no rules for this.
The number of sticks can also be varied, the minimum is three, but there are none ones that have 17 sticks to play on.
The most famous one is the Balafon. This type of is wearable en they have calabash resonators, big ones for the lower tunes and smaller calabashes for the higher regions.
The calabashes are mounted under the sticks. These it self are mounted with rope to a framework.
Every calabash has an opening with resin attached mirliton.
Mirlitons could be made of spider thread, or fish skin or snake skin or batwing, nowadays there are made of rice paper.
The mirlitons give the Balafon the characteristic sound.
In fact the Balafon is the ancestor of the Latin American marimba.
The big xylophone with seventeen sticks of Zaire Bapendé is called maminda.
This gives the origin place where the Latin American is based on.
The Balafon can also been used as solo instrument, but also in combination with other instruments.

Click On the instrument to hear a sample!!

The Kora is one of the nicest instruments of dark Africa, by shape and sound.
It has a resonance box, a neck a broad bridge and twenty one snares.
The resonance box is a big half calabash and fitted with a hide.
At the rounded side there is a hole that is well decorated
This opening where through "the sounds can escape" is similar as the western lute.
Sometimes the rest of the body is also decorated but this is not a must.
In the body there is a long cylindrical wooden neck attached.
The snares are mounted to the part of the neck that sticks out for a proximal four centimetres
At the other side of the neck it is attached with leather rings.
By moving the leather rings the instrument is tuned.
The comb is about twenty nine centimetres long and three too six centimetres wide
And has ten notches at one side, and eleven at the other side.
In fact the Kora is a double harp because the comb divides the snares in two rows, one of ten and one of eleven snares.
From the top down the notes are: F - C - D - E - G - bes - D' - F - A' - C'' - E'' ( for the left hand)
and F - A - C - E - G - bes - D' - F - G' - A' (for the right hand )
Because the notes are theoretically in tune, every note can by a little higher or lower, the westerners think that it sounds little of tune.
In guinea we also find the nineteen snared Kora, named Seron.
The Seron sounds and is played on in the same fashion as the Kora.
The Kora itself is played in Guinee, Gambia, Senegal and south Mali.
There are recordings of the instrument being played, solo, as a solo instrument, with a singer or combined with an orchestra.

It is not very important to point out that the Djembé is one off the most important for African music
Everywhere in the world this instrument is recognized as the base for African music.
Some people think that in Africa they only play drums.
Over the whole continent there is a huge amount of diver's drums
Every country has its own specific drum
Also we see the huge amount of materials, shapes, ways to play and taboos.
Through the centuries the stayed the same and are still popular every where you go.
They always maintained themselves even and adapted even outside this continent
Drums exhibit the through nature of dark Africa: music that shows itself through dancing rhythms
Even where the drum is excluded, they are replaced by clapping, stomping, or rhythmic repeating mimic that impersonate the rhythm of the drum
The Djembé is the most none drum and is being played especially in West Africa
Senegal, Guinea, Gambia, Mali ivory coast and Burkina-Faso
As al the other instruments the Djembé is also made by hand that's why every one has its own sound and shape
A carved out tree log, with goat or antilope hide.

The Djembé is just one of the many drums in Africa
Other drums used are: Doundoun, Kenkeni, Sangban, Talking drum (tama),
Bougarabou, kpanlogo, ngoma, and seiruba.

They are the primitive sounds that take you back to the woom."If you inside the womb you here the rhythm of your mothers heartbeat
The Djembé has the beat of the womb, that's why the Djembé can give you the feeling that you have everything inside and been carried away"
The Djembé has the most basic drive, and is the most easy drum to start with, although it takes five to ten years to really play well, you can play simple rhythms within a short time.

The Djembé has three basic tones: the deep bas, the tenor, and the slap
And is played with the hands.

The base tones:

The base: this stroke gives a warm deep tone. The whole hand on the middle of the drum.

The tenor: or open stroke: an open stroke with a distinguish sound.
The four fingers on the hand are stretched and together, without cramping the hand. While hitting the drum, let the fingers come down so that the back of the hand is in line with the drums edge.
Very imported is that not to hit the edge but the hide also to not get injured.

The slap: the slap comes down in the way as the tenor but this time with the fingers
Open and stretched, this gives a loud sharp sound. This is the hardest tone to learn that takes a lot of practice.

The fingertip: the fingertip is not really a stroke but more a rhythm that comes between the basic three tones to accompany the rhythm, here is also a lot experience needed.

Click On the instrument to hear a sample!!

Music without rhythm is no music, and with rhythm we think of bas
Bas tones give a charming sensation, you can hear them but also feel them.
You can feel the Drum within your stomach.
The dark deep tones sweep you too far.

The doundoun is a big bas drum with a diameter between thirty five and sixty centimeter, with on both sides cow hide and is played with sticks, and produces a dark sound bas.

The kenkeni is and other smaller drum that also is mounted with on both sides calf hides and gives a high tone. These three drums are accompanying instruments and are played in combination with other percussion instruments.

The sangban is a smaller version of the doun doun, but is mounted with calf hide, and is played with a stick
The diameter is about thirty centimeter and has a tone that is a pitch higher than the doun doun.

The krin is one of the many instruments without a snare.
In many countries they don't use the Tama as messenger, but uses an instrument without snare, made of a selective chosen tree trunk. The tree trunk is carved out with precision and care.
The result is a hollow cylinder with in the length an opening with one or two tongues, a male and female. The tongues have different thickness so that they make a different tone; the common Krin is about one meter long. The minimum length is about fifty centimetres and the maximum length is two and a half meter
The diameter can you get up to one meter, but usually it is between twenty five and forty centimetres.
The krin just makes two tones, sometimes even three
That's why the mesages are encoded ad exists of metaphoric sentenses that are used for different, compared meanings.
Though the krin is known as an instrument to send messages it is also used to make music to accompany dancing
The tama and the krin are most of the time used for messaging because they just produce two or three tones. The tama has a reach of numerous tones because this depended on the snares that are pressed, as for the krin only two or three tones produces
As if they wanted to compensate this Malinké musicians from Guinea, Mali and a part of Senegal have invented a drum that appears as a xylofon and has more than three tones.
The xylophone drum has a long carved out body with openings in the length
Every opening produces has a tongue wit its own tone sort.

The gongoma or lamelofon is a pinch instrument. Most of the time it is a square box of twenty five centimetres and fifteen centimetres wide and six centimetres high.
These are minimum sizes, bigger ones also exists
Also they are made of a half calabash with hide or a wooden plank.
The body can be a carved out piece of wood a box or calabash with on one side an n opening that produces the tones.
On the body are tongues mounted made of bamboo, palm branch, or metal. The tongues are mounted on the back of the comb together.
The ends of the tongues that are above the opening are mounted with pieces of balls of resin.
The instrument is tuned by adjusting the tongues length
Most of the time there are four or five tongues, but there also ten, sixteen, twenty, twentysix and even thirty tongues. These or strangely smaller and are called thumb piano.

Other small percussion instruments are: shekere, water drums (half calabashes)
Kalimba, udu, the fingerbell, banana bell and doundoun bell.