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West African Lutes In a Nutshell
Throughout Coastal West Africa (Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Côte d'Ivoire [Ivory Coast], Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon) and neighboring North Central
Africa (Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad), one can find plucked lutes. They come in a bewildering
assortment of different shapes and sizes. Likewise, these instruments are incredibly varied in the
kinds of materials they're made from, the ways they're played, and the social/cultural contexts
they're used in.
(For the sake of expedience, I'll file Coastal West Africa and North Central Africa
together under the common heading of West Africa.)
I should point out that of all of sub-Sahara Africa, West Africa is the only region
that has indigenous plucked lute traditions. The specifics of "how-when-and-where" plucked lutes
first made their appearance in West Africa is matter of some considerable speculation and heated
debate.
The current thinking is that these instruments were introduced into the region from north of the
Sahara, probably sometime during the heyday of the Soninke empire of Wagadu (c.300-1100 CE). Better
known as The Kingdom of Ghana, Wagadu was based in the southern region of present-day Mauritania,
northern Senegal, and southeastern Mali. As the epicenter of the trans-Saharan trade with North
Africa and the Muslim world at large, it seems logical that Ancient Ghana was most likely
"ground-zero" for the introduction of the plucked lute into various regional musical traditions.
(For my own take on the subject, please visit: The Origin of West African Lutes.)
West African plucked lutes are classed as long-neck lutes in the Hornbostel/Sachs
system, the current standard system of musical instrument classification. These instruments diverge
into either of two distinct limbs of the same family tree: griot lutes and folk/artisan lutes.
All West African lutes, regardless of whether they belong to the griot or folk
branches, share certain family characteristics:
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A fretless stick neck. |
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An animal skin "head" (soundtable). |
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The strings are fastened to the neck by means of sliding tuning rings, made of
leather straps or knotted cord, instead of wooden tuning pegs. |
Another common denominator is that the making and playing of lutes throughout West
Africa, regardless of type or class, is traditionally viewed as the exclusive domain of men.
Where griot lutes and folk/artisan lutes part company are on other issues of
morphology, usage, and social/cultural context. These are dealt with in greater detail in the
articles: Griot Lutes and West African Folk & Artisan Lutes.
In the meantime, let me just touch on the fundamental physiological differences between griot lutes
and their cousins of the folk class:
Because all types of West African lutes have stick necks, they are classified as being either spike
lutes or semi-spike lutes. A spike lute is one on which the stick neck extends the entire length of
the instrument's body to pierce through its tail, whereas the stick neck of semi-spike lute
typically ends under the soundtable several inches before the tail. Folk/artisan instruments
encompass both the spike and semi-spike categories, though most folk types tend to be spike lutes.
On the flip side, all instruments of the griot class are semi-spike lutes.
Standard griot lutes have oblong wooden trough-like bodies, which tend to be either boat-shaped or
figure "8" shaped. Folk/artisan lutes range in physiology from round gourd bodies (the oldest and
most prevalent form of folk/artisan lute) to wooden bodies similar to their griot cousins. In recent
times, some folk/artisan types are now constructed from recycled metal cans.
Typical griot lutes share the same type of bridge-- a fan-shaped wooden piece inserted into a
soundhole on the head to slide onto the narrow end of the neck. Conversely, the bridge on all types
of folk/artisan lutes rests atop of the instrument's head. The most common folk form is the cylinder
bridge, generally a piece of wooden dowel. (On some instruments the dowel is a hollowed-out tube
filled with small seeds for a rattle effect.) The Jola akonting and Manjago buchundu folk lutes are
unique in that they are the only extant West African lutes to have a footed upright bridge, similar
to that of the North African lutes and the early New World gourd banjos.
Griot lutes typically have 3 - 5 strings, though some variants may have up to 8 strings. Akin to the
"thumb string" (the chanterelle drone string) on the 5-string banjo, the top string is shorter than
the rest and is plucked by the thumb to provide a rhythmic backbeat. Folk lutes generally range from
single string instruments to those with three strings. Once again, the akonting and buchundu are
distinct in that they are 3-string folk lutes with a short top third string that serves the
chanterelle.
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