African Musical Instruments
The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

African musical instruments provide sounds that we know and love and are always a pleasure to listen to. They seem to have a soul of their own, delivering a sensational shiver of happiness from head to toe.

Music is an evocative and important part of everyday life; one that powers our emotions, moods, and memories. In Africa, music and dance are virtually life itself! Birth, wedding or death, every momentous occasion is a celebration.

Let me show you some of their most popular musical instruments and their history. I found sound research and delightful explanations in African Art and Culture by Jane Bingham.

A Variety Of African Musical Instruments

The people of Africa have produced a staggering array of musical instruments, which are used in various combinations to make a wide range of sounds. Many musical instruments are so intricate as to be artwork.

Truly, each unique piece comes in surprising shapes that may be carved in wood, decorated with patterns, or adorned with beads, feathers, paint, or cloth.

Drums are one of the most important African musical instruments, but other instruments Africans produced for rhythm dances and chants are: xylophones, flutes, horns, pipes, and a number of stringed instruments.

Bells, gongs, rattles, and clappers are frequently used for additional sounds and rhythms.

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A Bit More About Drums

Most African drums are carved from hollowed-out wood, with an animal skin stretched to make a membrane that the drummer beats.

Some drums have only one membrane, pulled over the mouth of the drum and held by pegs. Others have two membranes -- one at each end -- connected by strings.

Some drums from Nigeria and Benin are tall and goblet-shaped. They produce high and low sounds that replicate the Yoruba language. Yoruba talking drums often "speak" in families of three, with a large mother drum a medium-sized drum, and a baby drum.

The drummers collaborate by calling to one other and then answering, thereby creating a "praise poem" to honor their gods. These hollow wooden drums play a key role in their various dances and ceremonies.

African Musical Instruments -- A Cultural Heritage

In large parts of Africa, trumpets send messages from village to village or between groups or herders. A most unusual African trumpet is the side-blown trumpet of the Mali people in Uganda. These are made with strips of leather wrapped around wood with a mouthpiece placed on the side of the instrument.

Lutes are stringed guitar-like instruments, with a set of strings on a long neck and a hollow body. The people of Mali make stylish lutes known as koras with very long necks.

The resonator is carved from half a gourd and covered by a taut cowhide. The musician places the gourd against his or her body and pulls the strings with thumbs and forefingers.

Lyres have strings pulled across a horizontal bar. Ancient Nubians, who lived in present-day Sudan, played them. This tradition of making and playing lyres continues in Sudan to this day.

In Case You Didn't Know

Sudanese lyres are known as rebabas, possibly for the gentle sounds they make. Often hung with beads, shells, and coins, rebabas are played by shepherds and goatherds, and are popular at weddings.

Thumb pianos or sanzas, act as tiny hand-held pianos, with slim wooden or metal strips as keys. These keys are attached to a hollowed-out piece or wood or a gourd.

Musicians thumb the strips, each producing a different note. The sanza is often referred to as "the traveller's friend" because it can be played on the move.

Sanzas are ancient African instruments. They have existed since 1000 BC, and singers have used these thumb pianos for centuries to enhance their love ballads.

Occasionally thumb pianos are carved in the shape of a human figure. The Zande people who live on the borders of Sudan and the Congo are masters in making sanzas shaped like dancing women.

To be sure, African musical instruments, along with African body art and African symbols are at the heart of African life! I'm grateful to Jane Bingham and excellent book for how she inspired me to do this page.

• Bingham, Jane (2005). African Art & Culture (World Art & Culture), Illustrated Edition. Heinemann/Raintree. ISBN 1844210448.

I'm so grateful to Jane Bingham for inspiring me to create this page on musical instruments of Africa.

Looking for African music? Click the "Art For Sale" button on the menu to the left and browse my catalog of art. You just might be surprised to find something rhythmic there!

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this African musical instruments page.