HISTORY OF SABAR

The sabar, which originated from the Serer people, is a traditional drum from Senegal that is also played in the Gambia. It is generally played with one hand and one stick. Among its most renowned exponents was the Senegalese musician Doudou N'Diaye Rose.

 

The sabar was used to communicate with other villages. The different rhythms correspond to phrases and could be heard for over 15 kilometers. Sabar is also recognized as the style of music played while using this drum.

 

Junjung (various spellings, including Jung-jung, gungun also dyoung-dyoung etc.) is the name for the royal war drum of the Serer people in Senegal and the Gambia. It was played on the way to the battlefield, on special State occasions as well as on Serer religious ceremonies. It is also the progenitor of the music of the same name found in the Caribbean.

 

Dunun (also spelled dun dun or doundoun) is the generic name for a family of West African drums that have developed alongside the djembe in the Mande drum ensemble.

 

A dunun is a rope-tuned cylindrical drum with a rawhide skin at both ends, most commonly cow or goat. The drum is played with a stick. Depending on the region, a plain straight stick, curved stick with flat head (similar to the stick used for a tama), or a straight stick with a cylindrical head attached at right angles near one end may be used to strike the skin.

Traditionally, the drum is played horizontally (placed on a stand or worn with a shoulder strap). For a right-handed player, the right hand plays the skin and the left hand optionally plays a bell that may be mounted on top of the drum or held in the left hand. The latter style is popular in Mali and originally from the Khassonké people.

 

Three different sizes of dunun are commonly played in West Africa.

 

• The dundunba (also spelled dununba) is the largest dunun and has the lowest pitch. Typical size is 60–70 cm (24–28 in) in length and 40–50 cm (16–20  in) in diameter. "Ba" means "big" in the Malinké language, so "dundunba" literally means "big dunun".

 

• The sangban is of medium size, with higher pitch than the dundunba. Typical size is 50–60 cm (20–24 in) in length and 30–40 cm (12–16 in) in diameter.

 

• The kenkeni is the smallest dunun and has the highest pitch. Typical size is 45–50 cm (18–20 in) in length and 25–35 cm (10–14 in) in diameter.

 

Dunun are always played in an ensemble with one or more djembes.

 

The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to modulate the pitch of the drum by squeezing the cords between their arm and body. A skilled player is able to play whole phrases. Most talking drums sound like a human humming depending on the way they are played. Similar hourglass-shaped drums are found in Asia, but they are not used to mimic speech, although the idakka is used to mimic vocal music.

 

Hourglass-shaped talking drums are some of the oldest instruments used by West African griots and their history can be traced back to the Yoruba people, the Ghana Empire and the Hausa people. The Yoruba people of south western Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana) have developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum. Many variants of the talking drums evolved, with most of them having the same construction mentioned above. Soon, many non-hourglass shapes showed up and were given special names, such as the Dunan, Sangban, Kenkeni, Fontomfrom and Ngoma drums. This construction is limited to within the contemporary borders of West Africa, with exceptions to this rule being northern Cameroon and western Chad; areas which have shared populations belonging to groups predominant in their bordering West African countries, such as the Kanuri, Djerma, Fulani and Hausa.

 

In Senegalese and Gambian history, the tama (Serer) was one of the music instruments used in the Serer people's "Woong" tradition (the "dance performed by Serer boys yet to be circumcised" or the future circumcised, also known as the "Xaat" in the Serer language). The tama drum, has Serer religious connotations (which predates the Ghana Empire). In the Xaat tradition, the tama makes up the fourth musical drum ensemble. The Serer drums played include: Perngel, Lamb, Qiin and Tama.

 

“When the rooster crows, the Xaat will rest and sleep until the moment of circumcision, if he has been judged to be able to dance to the Woong, surrounded by four tam-tam. The Perngel, the Lamb, the Qiin and the Tama.”  — Henry Gravrand