African Percussion Instruments

Know Their Use And Purpose

African percussion instruments can be seen in more and more import percussion shops. They look cool and sound rootsy. But do you actually know their purpose?

Let's have a look at Africa itself, to see these instruments in their cultural context:

Types of African percussion instruments

For a quick impression of the vast variety, see the list with African names of percussion instruments. We are going to see some of them in action.

Idiophones

Not sure what an idiophone is? I bet that every single society on the whole continent plays some form of it. They include:

african shakers and rattles
Djembe Shakers

Shakers and rattles

Always present in some form or another, shakers and rattles are the spice and roots in African music.

Some examples of these instruments are:

Djembe shakers, axatse gourd rattles, juju shakers etc.

African Bells

Bells

The bells may not be as popular and well known as other African instruments. But they are extremely important.

Often, they are the backbone and timeline for a traditional music ensemble, like the:

Gankogui, Atoke, Castenets etc.

african xylophone
Gyil Xylophones

Xylophones

As it is tuned, the xylophone is able to play not only rhythm but also melody.

There's a surprising variety of African xylophone cultures. It is actually one of the continent's most central musical instruments.

kalimba
Kalimba

Thumb pianos

Thumb pianos are purely African instruments. They appear throughout Africa with different features and names: Mbira, Karimba, Sansa, Prempensua are just a few of them.

The African thumb piano even successfully made it into Western culture under the name "Kalimba".

Membranophones

Or to say it in plain English:

Drums

african drums
Hand and stick drums

Which fan of African music has not heard of the Djembe! It's extremely popular around the world.

But that's not all:

You will be surprised at the large number of other wicked African drums that are played on the continent! It's about time we discover and appreciate them as well.