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User:Jacqke/Traditional African lutes

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African lutes
String instrument
Classification plucked string instrument
Hornbostel–Sachs classification321

3: Instruments in which sound is produced by one or more vibrating strings (chordophones, string instruments).

32: Instruments in which the resonator and string bearer are physically united and can not be separated without destroying the instrument

321: Instruments in which the strings run in a plane parallel to the sound table (lutes)

321.3: Instruments in which the string bearer is a plain handle (handle lutes)

321.33: Instrument in which the handle extends into but does not pass completely through the resonator (tanged lutes)
Related instruments

See also: Sub-Saharan African music traditions

Early common cultural bonds

Kingdoms and group associations in West Africa which interconnected cultures included the Mali Empire c. 1235–1670, Sosso Empire c. 1054–c. 1235, Gao Empire c. 7th century–1325, Ghana Empire c. 100–300–c. mid-1200s and Pre-imperial Mali. It was in the Mali Empire that Al-'Umari and Ibn Battūta mentioned the use of lutes.[1]

Later kingdoms inluded the Songhai Empire c. 1430s–1591, Jolof Empire 13-14th century–1549, Kaabu Empire 1537–1867, and Empire of Great Fulo 1512–1776.

Outside cultural influence includes contact with India, Indonesia/Malay culture, Muslim culture and European culture.

Characteristics

Lutes in Africa may be distinguished geographically, to include West Africa, the Maghreb, and the Rice Coast. They have been grouped by cultures and peoples that play them. They have been grouped by status such as instruments of Griots (a caste of professional musician) and folk instruments. They may be viewed in terms of their structural characteristics and the methods musicians use in playing the instruments.

321.31 spike lutes

These are lutes in which a handle passes through both side walls of a resonator. Handles tend to be rods or sticks.[1, p7] Among African lutes these are found along the rice coast.

321.32 necked lutes

Lutes in which the carved neck is attached to the resonator or carved from the resonator.[1, p7] Lutes in this category tend to be in countries bordering on the Mediterranean and with cultural connections to the middle east. Typical examples include the oud. This category also includes Coptic lutes (Egyptian), which have similarities to ancient Egyptian lutes, but also to Greek/Roman pandura and the rubab (Pamiri rubab, Seni rebab). The Coptic lute's neck is hollow, as are the rubabs.

321.33 tanged lutes

Also called an internal-spike lute. These are instruments like the spike lutes, except that the handle touches only one side of the resonator body, the end remaining inside or poking through the soundboard. These do not piece the resonator body but rest in an indentation in the resonator; those like the Griot lutes are woven in and out through the skin sound table[1, p7] These are the typical lute of West Africa. Some non-Griot lutes have the handle lying on top of the sound table.

North Africa and Maghrib

names and variations of names Description Ethnic connections, regions Picture Picture
Guembri (الكمبري)

Gombri

gimbri (Hausa)

hejhouj (Hausa)

Lotar (لوتار)

Sintir (Arabic: سنتير)

tanged or internal-spike lute, bass range of notes. 1-1.5 meters long, oval or rectangular body of carved wood with untanned skin soundboard, sheep-gut strings attached to neck with leather straps

Moroccan lute is tanged, in which the handle ends inside the body of the instrument, the end visible through a hole.

There are also spike lute in Tunisia, in which the handle pokes through the sidewall of the body, for strings to anchor on.

Both use a u-shaped bridge that sits on top of the soundboard.

Played in Maghreb countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) by Gnawa for concerts and religious purposes. Played with tbal drum and qarqabs.

Used in Morocco in possession ritual (Derdeba) to invoke spirits.[note 1][1] Tunisian possession ritual called Stambali.

 
Algeria. Tanged lute, same as Moroccan.
 
Tunisia. A yenna and his Gombri. Full spike lute.
 
Tunisia. Full spike lute
 
Morocco. Sintir player. Tannged lute.
 
Morocco. Guembri player. Tanged lute.
 
Morocco. Lotar player.

West Africa

Griot lute

-fan shaped bridge feature of West African griot instruments[charry, p5]

Non-griot lute

-cylindrical bridge

Rice Coast

The Rice Coast of Africa is the region on the Atlantic Coast, from Senegal to Liberia. Many of its residents were enslaved because of their knowledge in growing rice.[2] The Rice Coast has lutes that may be closely related to the American banjo.[3]

Spike Lutes

See also Music of Guinea-Bissau, Balanta people

The spike lutes of the Rice Coast have resonators made from gourds, with handles that poke through the side walls on both sides.[3] The handles or round necks are fretless, made from a papyrus stalk.[3] Typically they have 3 strings (a short drone string as on a banjo, and two melody strings).[3] The strings are attached at the neck with tuning rings and pass over the skin soundtable (tacked across the cut opening in the top of the gourd).[3] The strings pass over an upright bridge that sits directly on top of the soundtable's skin surface.[3]

Gourd resonator bodies are usually round, but a variant called entofer uses an oval or tear-shaped gourd, also described as "bulbous."[3]

European language adaptions Names in African languages Pronunciation Ethnic connections, regions Picture
Akonting[3] (English transliteration)

ekonting[3] (French transliteration}

[ə'kɔntiŋ] folk lute of the Jola people, found in Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa
 
Akonting player in Bagaya
bunchundo[3] folk lute of the Manjak
kisinta[3]

kusunde[3]

folk lute of the Balanta[4]
busunde[3][4] folk lute of the Papel
ngopata[3][4] folk lute of the Bijago, Bijago Islands of Guinea Bissau.[4]

Ancient Egypt

Lutes after addition of Nubia to Egypt in New Kingdom...Some depictions of lutes and harps in Egypt included the head of a goose, duck, falcon goddess or king on the head of the instrument.[7]

Similarly, trough zither from Africa sometimes include the sculpture of a person. The instrument has a voice, speaks and the sculpture implies it is a person.

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    Lute from Tomb of Nacht, 15th century BC
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    Lute player, tomb of Nakhtamun, TT 341, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna
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    :Egyptian lute, male musician, Rekhmire tt100
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    Painting of a lute player from an ostracon, Deir el-Medina. New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1292-1189 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 63805
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    Lute player, head of lute has bird head
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    lute has bird head. Nubian
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Coptic lutes

Scholarship

Lutes have been played parts of Africa for millennia. Historical examples include Ancient Egypt (c. 1850 BC) and the Mali Empire (c. 14th century AD).[1] In spite of the possible history of the instrument there, musical historians have yet to create an extensive history of the lute in Africa.[1] Instead, historians have relied on early musicologists generalizations; Henry Farmer, Curt Sachs and Bernhard Ankermann generalized that African lutes were "are all essentially the same instrument."[1, page 1 and footnote 2] In this view, all lutes could be labeled gunbrī or gunibrī in spite of differences in body style, size and number of strings, in spite of different cultural uses (folk use versus professional Griots), and in spite of different names applied in different languages.[1]

In 1996, musical scholar Eric Charry called attention to a trend toward repudiation, questioning and refining of that assumption.[1] Charry focused on lutes of West Africa, but he noted that study needs to take into account cultures, tribes, regions, design features and history.[1] Cameroon musicologist Francis Bebey included the need to consider an instrument's cultural purpose (to speak or accompany speech rather than singing), language (different pitches in spoken language change meanings of words; musical instruments speak because they can mimic those pitches, songs in African languages are speech completely driven by pitches of words in language).[2] Bebey also brought up a spiritual or religious significance of African instruments: they speak, therefore in some cultures they may be treated with respect as beings.[2]

In 1996 Charry published a list of lutes, divided into similar physical attritutes, by name and culture or tribe.[1] That list was expanded further in 2018 by Shlomo Pestcoe and Greg C. Adams, who were researching the origins of the American banjo.[3]

Another banjo scholar's work that touches on specific African instruments and uncovering their history in the Mediterranean and Americas is Kristina R. Gaddy; Gaddy's research covers blending of African traditions (under European and American slave systems), the instruments' role in African religion as a conduit for spirits to speak, and the conflict between European Christianity and African religions over spiritual-device lutes in the hands of slaves.[4][5]

Chuck Levy interviewed musicians in Africa, revealing how music has changed between generations, how materials in instruments have changed, ritual songs, songs for entertainment, affects of language and dialects on instrument names, and playing techniques.[Banjo Roots, ch5] Nick Bamber explored W African tuning systems in Senegal.[Banjo Roots, ch4]

Bridges

  • Fan shaped [1, p6]
  • Cylindrical [1][banjo roots p 223]
  • bipedal [banjo roots p 221]

Notes

  1. ^ [From German Wikipedia:] Derdeba , pl . Dradeb, also Lila, Laila (Arabic for “night”), is a nightly religious ceremony of the Gnawa, a Sufi brotherhood in Morocco with origins in black African slaves. At the climax of the event, which is part of a possession cult, the spirits (jinn) that the patients believe are attacking them are supposed to be summoned and appeased through dances and the music of the plucked lute gimbri.

References

  1. ^ Sum, Maisie (April 2012). Music of the Gnawa of Morocco: Evolving Spaces and Times (Thesis). Vancouver, British Columbia: The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Music) The University of British Columbia (Vancouver). pp. 17, 66–67. The entire derdeba [lila] rests on the gumbri that evokes the genies and directs them on a fantastic cavalcade marked by the qarqab. The genies come at the call of the instrument and the bared feet of the moqaddem when he dances. [A moqaddem refers to a ritual officiant who is often a seer-therapist and/or medium. A m'allem is a master musican, who is also male.] A good maalem and a good moqaddem are "hot" people that "induce ascent." Their quality is measured by the number of adepts that fall in trance and are possessed as soon as they begin.
  2. ^ Opala, Joseph A. "The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection". Yale MacMillan Center, Gilder Leherman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition. Retrieved 30 August 2024. The white plantation owners purchased slaves from various parts of Africa, but they greatly preferred slaves from what they called the "Rice Coast" or "Windward Coast"—the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa, stretching from Senegal down to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pestcoe, Shlomo (1 February 2009). "The Akonting & Other Folk Lutes of West Africa's "Rice Coast"". Shlolomusic.com.
  4. ^ a b c d Bamber, Nick (1 February 2009). "Two Gourd Lutes from the Bijago Islands of Guinea Bissau". Shlolomusic.com.

Catherine Baroin , «  The African Odyssey of a Rudimentary Chordophone, the « Lute with an Inner Spike »  » , Afrique: Archéologie & Arts [Online], 7 | 2011, published on 01 November 2015 , consulted on 27 August 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/aaa/625 ; DOI  : https://doi.org/10.4000/aaa.625

  • Pestcoe, Shlomo (1 February 2009). "Griot Lutes". Shlolomusic.com.


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