THE WEST AFRICAN TALKING DRUMS
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Talking drums are any of various types of drums that, by imitating the rhythm & the rise & fall of words in languages, are used as entertainment & communication devices.
The Talking Drums are hourglass-shaped made of wood, with animal skin(mostly goatskin) for the two drum heads at opposite ends & leather cords that connects one end to another. The wood for the drums are gotten from tree trunks. The drum skins are dried under the sun to make a deeper & clearer sound from the drum. the many leather cords, or ropes, that run along the body from one drum head to the other give the talking drum its voice. It is usually played with a curved, hook-like stick.
Majorly, the Ghana empire, Bono people, Hausa people, and Yoruba people used these percussion instruments.
They're known by different names viz; Dondo or Odondo by Alan languages. Lunna or Donno by the Dagbanis & Gurunsis. Mbaggu by the Fulani. Kalangu or Dan kar'bir by the Hausa. Tama by the Serers and Wolof. And Dùndún or Gángan by the Yorubas.
Talking drums can be used for entertainment at weddings, private functions, festivals and burial ceremonies. And more interestingly also as communication devices.
How the talking drum is typically held
The mechanisms behind this mystery was demystified by Livia Gershon, a daily correspondent at the Smithsonian magazine in her article "How Does the West African Talking Drum Accurately Mimic Human Speech?".
Gershon wrote the talking drums can mimic human voice more clearly when played in"talking mode" and notentertainment. And to achieve this, she wrote "the players typically use one hand to adjust the leather tensioning thongs between the two membranes thereby raising or lowering the drum’s pitch, & the other to strike the instrument’s surface with a curved stick".
It is explained in another article by William Rodriguez in the Archaicroots that adjusting the tension is usually done by squeezing the drum under one arm to cause the leather cords/rope to change shape.
How do they talk? It is explained that when the drummer plays the instrument, then every single word is translated into a phrase.
E.g, "Come back home" may be played on the drum as "make your feet come back the way they went" in a repeating sequence.
It is said that extra phrases provide a context in which to make sense of the drum beats. These phrases could not be randomized but students learning to play the drum were taught the exact phrases that coincided with a word.
Tom Waits used the talking drum on his song *"Trouble***** braids"
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac has used the talking drum on the track "world turning" on the band's 1975 eponymous album and in concert performances of the song.
The talking drum was used in **a Tv series *"dead like me" & also in popular movies like "The Nun's Story" & *"The Black Panther".
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac
1.References:
Kidal Team. 37 Talking Drum Facts: Discover The Unique African Instrument. https://kidadl.com/fun-facts/talking-drum-facts-discover-the-unique-african-instrument. Accessed 12th May, 2022.
3.Livia Gershon. How Does the West African Talking Drum Accurately Mimic Human Speech?. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-west-african-drums-really-talk-180978296/. Accessed 12th May, 2022.
4.William Rodriguez. Talking Drums: Ancient Storytellers of West Africa. https://www.archaicroots.com/drums/talking-drums-ancient-storytellers-west-africa/. Accessed 12th May, 2022.
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