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The kora (Manding languages: ߞߐߙߊ kɔra [1]) is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. [2] A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It has features of the lute and harp.
Xalam (in Serer, khalam in Wolof, and Mɔɣlo in Dagbanli) is a traditional lute from West Africa with 1 to 5 strings. [2] The xalam is commonly played in Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Western Sahara.
The akonting ([ə'kɔntiŋ], [1] or ekonting in French transliteration) is the folk lute of the Jola people, found in Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.It is a string instrument with a skin-headed gourd body, two long melody strings, and one short drone string, akin to the short fifth "thumb string" on the five-string banjo.
The resonator of these West African lutes may be made of wood, metal (such as a discarded can), hide, or a half-calabash gourd. [3] Non-griot lutes are not restricted by heredity, and are used for many social purposes, most commonly hunting. [3] It is likely that one or more of these instruments is the ancestor of the African American banjo. [4]
The pluriarc, also called paata, mapu, luku, [1] kissanga, and bow lute [2] is a stringed musical instrument of West Africa, classified as a type of lute.It has a hollow body and several curved, pliable necks made of reeds.
The pierced lute had a neck made from a stick that pierced the body (as in the ancient Egyptian long-neck lutes, and the modern African gunbrī). [16] The long lute had an attached neck, and included the sitar, tanbur and tar (dutār 2 strings, setār 3 strings, čatār 4 strings, pančtār 5 strings). [1] [15]
Up until that point, the conventional wisdom was that the wooden-bodied plucked lutes exclusive to the West African griots, such as the Mande ngoni and the Wolof xalam, were the archetypes for the earliest forms of the banjo, first made and played by enslaved West Africans in the New World, from the 17th century on.
Side view of a kontigi. The lute has a elongated or oval half-calabash soundbox. It is small, about 12 inches long, with a high pitch. A kontigi or kuntigi is a one-stringed African lute played by the Hausa, Songhai and Djerma. [1] [2] A 3-string version teharden is used among the Tamashek. [2]