African music utilizes a wide variety of traditional instruments including percussion, strings, winds, and vocals. Percussion instruments include drums made from wood, ceramics, or metal which are played by hand or with mallets. Strings include instruments like the kora harp, lutes, zithers and the musical bow. Aerophones include flutes, horns, panpipes and whistles made from materials like wood, clay, or animal horns.
African music utilizes a wide variety of traditional instruments including percussion, strings, winds, and vocals. Percussion instruments include drums made from wood, ceramics, or metal which are played by hand or with mallets. Strings include instruments like the kora harp, lutes, zithers and the musical bow. Aerophones include flutes, horns, panpipes and whistles made from materials like wood, clay, or animal horns.
African music utilizes a wide variety of traditional instruments including percussion, strings, winds, and vocals. Percussion instruments include drums made from wood, ceramics, or metal which are played by hand or with mallets. Strings include instruments like the kora harp, lutes, zithers and the musical bow. Aerophones include flutes, horns, panpipes and whistles made from materials like wood, clay, or animal horns.
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 Instruments These are percussion instruments that are either struck with a mallet or against one another. 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. 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. 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 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. (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 are instruments which produce sounds from the vibration of strings. These include bows, harps, lutes, zithers, and lyres of various sizes. 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 (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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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.