MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

OF AFRICA
African music includes all the
major instrumental genres of
western music, including strings,
winds, and percussion, along with
a tremendous variety of specific
African musical instruments for
solo or ensemble playing.
Classification
of
Traditional
African
 Idiophones
 These are percussion
instruments that are either
struck with a mallet or against
one another.
Balafon
Rattle
Agogo
Atingting Kon
Slit drum
Djembe
Shekere
Rasp
 Membranophones
 instruments which have vibrating
animal membranes used in
drums.
 Their shapes may be conical,

cylindrical, barrel, hour-glass,

globular, or kettle, and are played
with sticks, hands, or a
combination of both.
African drums are usually carved from a
single wooden log, and may also be made
from ceramics, gourds, tin cans, and oil
drums.

Examples of these are found in the different

localities – entenga (Ganda), dundun
(Yoruba), atumpan (Akan), and ngoma
(Shona), while some are constructed with
wooden staves and hoops.
 Body percussion
 Africans frequently use their bodies as
musical instruments. Aside from their voices,
where many of them are superb singers, the
body also serves as a drum as people clap
their hands, slap their thighs, pound their
upper arms or chests, or shuffle their feet.
 Talking drum
 The talking drum is used to send messages
to announce births, deaths, marriages,
sporting events, dances, initiation, or war.
 Sometimes it may also contain gossip or

jokes. It is believed that the drums can carry

direct messages to the spirits after the death
of a loved one.
 However, learning to play messages on drums

is extremely difficult, resulting in its waning

popularity. An example of the talking drum is
the luna
Luna
 Lamellaphone
 One of the most popular African percussion
instruments is the lamellaphone, which is a set
of plucked tongues or keys mounted on a
sound board.

It is known by different names according to the

regions such as mbira, karimba, kisaanj, and
likembe.
 Mbira
(hand piano or thumb piano) - The thumb
piano or finger xylophone is of African origin
and is used throughout the continent. It
consists of a wooden board with attached
staggered metal tines (a series of wooden,
metal, or rattan tongues), plus an additional
resonator to increase its volume. It is played by
holding the instrument in the hands and
plucking the tines with the thumbs, producing
a soft plucked sound.
 Chordophones
Chordophones are instruments
which produce sounds from the
vibration of strings. These include
bows, harps, lutes, zithers, and
lyres of various sizes.
 Musical bow
 The musical bow is the ancestor of all string
instruments. It is the oldest and one of the
most widely-used string instruments of
Africa.
 Lute
 Lute (konting, khalam, and the nkoni ) - The lute,
originating from the Arabic states, is shaped like
the modern guitar and played in similar fashion.

 It has a resonating body, a neck, and one or more

strings which stretch across the length of its body
and neck. The player tunes the strings by tightening
or loosening the pegs at the top of the lute’s neck.

 West African plucked lutes include

the konting, khalam, and the nkoni.
nkoni
 Kora
 Kora - The kora is Africa's most
sophisticated harp, while also having
features similar to a lute. Its body is made
from a gourd or calabash.
 A support for the bridge is set across the

opening and covered with a skin that is held

in place with studs.
 The leather rings around the neck are used

to tighten the 21 strings that give the

instrument a range of over three octaves.
The kora is held upright and played with the
fingers.
Kora
 Zither
The zither is a stringed instrument with varying
sizes and shapes whose strings are stretched
along its body. Among the types of African
zither are the raft or Inanga zither from
Burundi, the tubular or Valiha zither from
Malagasy, and the harp or Mvet zither from
Cameroon.
 Zeze
 The zeze is an African fiddle played with a
bow, a small wooden stick, or plucked with
the fingers. It has one or two strings, made of
steel or bicycle brake wire. It is from Sub-
Saharan Africa. It is also known by the names
tzetze and dzendze, izeze and endingidi; and
on Madagascar is called lokanga (or lokango)
voatavo.
Aerophones
 Aerophones are instruments which are
produced initially by trapped vibrating air
columns or which enclose a body of vibrating
air. Flutes in various sizes and shapes, horns,
panpipes, whistle types, gourd and shell
megaphones, oboe, clarinet, animal horn and
wooden trumpets fall under this category.
 Flutes - Flutes are widely used throughout
Africa and either vertical or side-blown. They
are usually fashioned from a single tube
closed at one end and blown like a bottle.
 Atenteben (Ghana) Fulani Flutes
 Panpipes consist of cane pipes of different
lengths tied in a row or in a bundle held
together by wax or cord, and generally closed
at the bottom. They are blown across the top,
each providing a different note.
 Horns - Horns and trumpets, found almost
everywhere in Africa, are commonly made
from elephant tusks and animal horns. With
their varied attractive shapes, these
instruments are end-blown or side-blown
and range in size from the small signal
whistle of the southern cattle herders to the
large ivory horns of the tribal chiefs of the
interior. One trumpet variety, the wooden
trumpet, may be simple or artistically carved,
sometimes resembling a crocodile’s head.
Kudu horn
Reed pipes
 Whistles - Whistles found throughout the
continent may be made of wood or other
materials. Short pieces of horn serve as
whistles, often with a short tube inserted into
the mouthpiece. Clay can be molded into
whistles of many shapes and forms and then
baked. Pottery whistles are sometimes
shaped in the form of a head, similar to the
Aztec whistles of Central America and
Mexico.
African Whistle
 Trumpets - African trumpets are made of
wood, metal, animal horns, elephant tusks,
and gourds with skins from snakes, zebras,
leopards, crocodiles and animal hide as
ornaments to the instrument.

 They are mostly ceremonial in nature, often

used to announce the arrival or departure of
important guests.