Monday, September 30, 2013

10 African Music Instruments

1. Kalimba

The thumb piano or kalimba is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone (lamellophone) common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Also known as a " sansa" and "mbira", it is popular throughout central, western and eastern Africa. It was formerly known as the Negro piano. The kalimba is played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs.








2. Marimba
The marimba  is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The bars are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural bars (similar to a piano) to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type ofxylophone, but with broader and lower tonal range and resonators.
The chromatic marimba was developed in quetzaltenango Guatemala (departament of Guatemala) from the diatonic marimba, an instrument whose ancestor was a type of balafon that African slaves built inCentral America.


 3. Djembe
A djembe is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bamana people in Mali, the name of the djembe comes from the saying "Ankedjé, ankebé" which translates to "everyone gather together in peace" and defines the drum's purpose. In theBambara language, "djé" is the verb for "gather" and "bé" translates as "peace".
The djembe has a body (or shell) carved of hardwood and a drumhead made of untreated (not limed) rawhide, most commonly made from goatskin. Excluding rings, djembes have an exterior diameter of 30–38 cm (12–15 in) and a height of 58–63 cm (23–25 in). The majority have a diameter in the 13 to 14 inch range. The weight of a djembe ranges from 5 kg to 13 kg (11–29 lb) and depends on size and shell material. A medium-size djembe carved from one of the traditional woods (including skin, rings, and rope) weighs around 9 kg (20 lb).



4. Nyanga Pan Pipes
The pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length (and, at times, girth). The pan flute has long been popular as a folk instrument, and is considered the first mouth organ, ancestor of both the pipe organ and the harmonica. The pan flute is named for its association with the Greek god Pan. The pipes of the pan flute are typically made from bamboo or giant cane; other materials used include wood, plastic, metal and ivory.
Another term for the pan flute is syrinx, from Greek mythology, the story of Pan. The plural of syrinx is syringes, from which the modern word syringe is derived. (Pan pipes is both singular and plural.) Other names for the instrument are mouth organ, Pandean pipe, and the Latin fistula panis.




5. Xhosa Uhadi Bows

Xhosa music has long been a major part of the music of South Africa, especially in the field of jazz. There are many Xhosa clans, each with their own styles of drumming and dialects.
No Finish Dywili assisted from 1979 in Africanising local Christian liturgical music and the Ngqoko Women's Cultural Group helped preserve the Xhosa music of the village of Ngqoko, including the married woman's umngqungqo style, danced at the intonjane ceremony of girls' rites of passage. Professor Andrew Tracey, director of the International Library of African Music, commented on "the polyphonic singing, the three types of bow they play (including the uhadi gourd bow) the umngqokolo overtone singing". According to Tracey, the Khoisan had a big influence on this music.


6. Kudu Horn Pipes

A kudu horn is a musical instrument made from the horn of the kudu antelope. A form of it is sometimes used as a shofar in Jewish ceremonies. It is mostly seen in the Western world in its use as a part of the Scouting movement's Wood Badge training program which, when blown, signals the start of a Wood Badge training course or activity.
A horn of this shape, when used by soccer fans, is called kuduzela (a portmanteau of "kudu" and "vuvuzela"). The kudu, "tholo" in the language Setswana, is a tribal totem of the Barolong and Batlhaping people of Botswana and South Africa.



7. Akadinda

The akadinda and the amadinda are xylophone-like instruments originating in Buganda, in modern-day Uganda. The amadinda is made of twelve logs which are tuned in a pentatonic scale. It is played by three players. Two players sit opposite of each other and play the same logs in an interlocking technique in a fast tempo. It has no gourd resonators or buzzing tone, two characteristics of many other African xylophones.
The amadinda was an important instrument at the royal court in Buganda, the kingdom which gave Uganda its name. A special type of notation is now used for this xylophone, consisting of numbers for and periods, as is also the case with the embaire, a type of xylophone originating in southern Uganda.

8. Gankogui
The gankogui, also known as a gakpevi, is a bell, or gong instrument played with a wooden stick. It is made out of forged iron and consists of a low-pitched bell (often referred as the parent bell) and a high-pitched bell (or the child bell, which is said to rest on the bosom of the protective parent), which are permanently bound together. The gankogui is the skeleton, backbone, and foundation of all traditional Ewe music. The gankogui player must play steadily and without error throughout the piece. The gankogui player must be a trustworthy person, and is considered blind if they do not have a concrete understanding of the instrument and its role in the drumming ensemble. In a drumming ensemble, a gankogui player uses no variation.




9. Shekere

The shekere is an instrument from West Africa consisting of a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd. Throughout the continent there are similar gourd/bead or gourd/seed percussion instruments. Some are the lilolo, axatse (Ghana), djabara (Guinea), ushàkà, and chequere. It is predominantly called shekere in Nigeria.
The Agbe is a gourd drum with cowrie shells and is usually strung with white cotton thread. The Axatse is a small gourd, held by the neck and percussed between hand and leg. In Liberia, the net has a long "tail" through which the beads are manipulated.

10. Ngoma

Ngoma (also called engoma or ng'oma or ingoma) are musical instruments used by certain Bantu-speaking peoples of East Africa; 'ngoma' is, simply, the Swahili word for 'drum'. Different regions of Africa have their own traditions of percussion, with different names for their instruments. In kiSwahili-speaking Kenya and Tanzania, 'ngoma' is used by extension to signify specific dances, social occasions and rhythms.


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