African musical instruments come in many varieties including idiophones like balafons, membranophones like djembes, chordophones like the kora, and aerophones like flutes. Many instruments are made from materials found in nature such as wood, metal, animal skins and horns. Drums can be crafted from wood, clay, gourds or animal shells. Flutes are made from reeds or bamboo. Animal horns and skins provide the raw materials for trumpets and drum membranes. African music thus incorporates a rich diversity of indigenous instruments closely tied to the local environment.

1. 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

2. CLASSIFICATION OF TRADITIONAL
AFRICAN INSTRUMENTS
A. Idiophones. These are percussion
instruments that are either struck
with a mallet or against one another.
1. Balafon – The balafon is a West
African xylophone. It is a pitched
percussion instrument with bars
made from logs or bamboo. The
xylophone is originally an Asian
instrument that follows the structure
of a piano. It came from Madagascar
to Africa, then to the Americas and
Europe.

4. Agogo - The agogo is a single bell or
multiple bells that had its origins in
traditional Yoruba music and also in the
samba baterias (percussion)
ensembles. The agogo may be called
“the
oldest samba instrument based on West
African Yoruba single or double bells.” It
has the highest pitch of any of the
bateria
instruments

5. • Atingting Kon – These are slit gongs used
to communicate between villages. They
were carved out of wood to resemble
ancestors and had a “slit opening” at the
bottom. In certain cases, their sound could
carry for miles through the forest and even
across water to neighboring islands. A
series of gong “languages” were composed
of beats and pauses, making it possible to
send highly specific messages.
• Slit drum – The slit drum is a hollow
percussion instrument. Although known as
a drum, it is not a true drum but is an
idiophone. It is usually carved or
constructed from bamboo or wood into a
box with one or more slits in the top. Most
slit drums have one slit, though two and
three slits (cut into the shape of an “H”)
occur. If the resultant tongues are different
in width or thicknesses, the drum will
produce two different pitches

6. • Djembe - The West African djembe
(pronounced zhem-bay) is one of the
best-known African drums is. It is
shaped like a large goblet and played
with bare hands. The body is carved
from a hollowed trunk and is covered
in goat skin. Log drums come in
different shapes and sizes as well:
tubular drums, bowl-shaped drums,
and friction drums. Some have one
head, others have two heads. The
bigger the drum, the lower the tone or
pitch. The more tension in the drum
head, the higher the tone produced.
These drums are played using hands or
sticks or both; and sometimes have
rattling metal and jingles attached to
the outside or seeds and beads placed
inside the drum. The sling sometimes
held under the armpit or with a sling.

7. • Shekere – The shekere is a type of
gourd and shell megaphone from
West Africa, consisting of a dried
gourd with beads woven into a
net covering the gourd. Theagbe
is another gourd drum with
cowrie shells usually strung with
white cotton thread. The Axatse
is a small gourd, held by the neck
and placed between hand and
leg.
Rasp – A rasp, or scraper, is a hand
percussion instrument whose
sound is produced by scraping the
notches on a piece of wood
(sometimes elaborately carved)

8. B. Membranophones
Membranophones are 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.
1. 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. This body percussion
creates exciting rhythms which also stir them
to action. Moreover, the wearing of rattles or

9. • 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.

10. 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.

11. • Chordophones
Chordophones are instruments which produce
sounds from the vibration of strings.
These include bows, harps, lutes, zithers, and lyres of
various sizes.
1. 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. It
consists of a single string attached to each end of a
curved stick, similar to a bow and arrow. The string is
either plucked or struck with another stick, producing
a per-cussive yet delicate sound. The earth bow, the
mouth bow, and the resonator-bow are the principal
types of musical bows. The earth bow, ground bow, or
pit harp consist of a hole in the ground, a piece of
flexible wood and a piece of chord. The musician
plucks the taut string to accompany his singing.
When the half gourd is not buried, the performer
holds the instrument very tightly under his knee flat
side down, so that the chord puts enough tension on

12. 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,

13. • 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.
• 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

14. 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.

15. • E. 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.
1. 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. 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 .

16. • 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 – This is one type of horn made
from the horn of the kudu antelope. It
releases a mellow and warm sound that
adds a unique African accent to the music.
This instrument, which comes in a set of six
horns, reflects the cross of musical
traditions in Africa. Today, the kudu horn
can also be seen in football matches, where

17. • Reed pipes – There are single-reed pipes made
from hollow guinea corn or sorghum stems,
where the reed is a flap partially cut from the
stem near one end. It is the vibration of this reed
that causes the air within the hollow instrument
to vibrate, thus creating the sound. There are
also cone-shaped double-reed instruments
similar to the oboe or shawm. The most well-
known is the rhaita or ghaita, an oboe-like
double reed instrument from northwest Africa. It
is one of the primary instruments used by
traditional music ensembles from Morocco. The
rhaita was even featured in the Lord of the Rings
soundtrack, specifically in the Mordor theme.
• 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.

18. • 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. In religion
and witchcraft, some tribes
believe in the magical powers of
trumpets to frighten away evil
spirits, cure diseases, and
protect warriors and hunters

19. AFRICAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FROM
THE ENVIRONMENT
Many instruments of Africa are made from natural elements like wood, metal,
animal, skin and horns, as well as improvised ones like tin cans and bottles.
These are mainly used to provide rhythmic sounds, which are the most defining
element of African music. Africans make musical instruments from the materials
in the environment, like forest areas from where they make large wooden drums.
Drums may also be made of clay, metal, tortoise shells, or gourds. Xylophones
are made of lumber or bamboo, while flutes can be constructed wherever reeds
or bamboo grow. Animal horns are used as trumpets while animal hides, lizard
skins, and snake skins can function as decorations as well as provide the
membranes for drum heads. Laces made of hides and skins are used for the
strings of harps, fiddles, and lutes. On the other hand, bamboo was used to form
the tongues of thumb pianos, the frames of stringed instruments, and stamping
tubes. Strips of bamboo are even clashed together rhythmically. Gourds, seeds,
stones, shells, palm leaves, and the hard-shelled fruit of the calabash tree are
made into rattles. Ancient Africans even made musical instruments from human
skulls decorated with human hair while singers use their body movements to