- Park Forest Middle School
- Music Class Units
- Drumming and World Music
- South of the Sahara
Morris, Bobbi, 6th Grade - Music
-
South of the Sahara
Traditional Instruments
African musical instruments today include a wide variety of traditional instruments (below) plus modern Western instruments such as electric guitars, saxophones, basses, trumpets, and keyboards of all types. The names of instruments vary with each region and tribe.Idiophones (main parts vibrate)
Dawuro - one of many types of single iron bells shaped like a curled up leaf; played with a metal beater Gankogui - metal double bell found throughout West Africa; played with a wooden stick Thumb Piano or Mbira (also known as sansa or kalimba) - a hand-held hollow box of board with metal tongues plucked with thumbs; often played inside a large gourd resonator; may have bottle caps or other metal attached to produce a buzzing sound Xylophone - wooden keys played with mallets; may have gourd resonators under each key Shekere - a medium-sized calabash gourd which has outer netting with attached seeds or shells Slit Drums or log drums - also known as slit gongs are large hollow logs played with large wooden beaters; they are the ancient relatives of the modern wood block or tongue drums. Membranophones (membrane vibrates)
SOGO a barrel drum found among the Ewe people of Ghana; played with hands or sticksFrame Drums - may be round or rectangular; played with the handDjembe - a goblet-shaped drum played throughout West Africa Aerophones (air column vibrates)
Natural Horn - made from an animal horn; blown like a trumpet Flute- natural wooden flutes of all sorts are played throughout Africa. (The flute comes in around the 45 second mark. What other instruments is featured?)Panpipes - a bundle of reeds or hollow wooden tubes of graduated lengths; played by blowing over the topChordophones (string(s) vibrate)
Story- a single stringed instrument; played by plucking or hitting the string with a stick; often with an attached gourd resonatorTube Zither - strings (may be from the body of the tube) around a hollow wooden tube Arched Harp - one of many types of stringed harp-like instruments found throughout part of Africa; plucked
Last Modified on February 10, 2020