The garaya or komo is an oval-bodied, two-string spike lute from Niger and Northern Nigeria. [2]
The garaya or komo is an oval-bodied, two-string spike lute from Niger and Northern Nigeria. [2]
Two different versions of the garaya exist in Nigeria. [1] The Fulani people and Hausa people both have their own version. [1]
A garaya is around 50 centimeters long, plucked with a plectrum made from stiffened cowhide or hippopotamus hide. [2] [3] It is used by the Hausa people to play traditional music. [2] The instrument has a wooden soundbox in the shape of an oval, covered with goatskin or duiker-skin and a neck that goes through both sides of the bowl. From the butt, the strings run across the bowl, and the loose ends are tied to tuning strings (which are wrapped around the neck as anchor points). The lute may have a metal jingle attached to the handle. [2]
A larger version of the instrument is called the babbar garaya or komo. [3] Babbar means large. [3] The instrument has a gourd body or soundbox and is about 75 centimeters long. [3]
The komo (also 2 strings) is equivalent to the garaya. [3] It has a soundbox made from a gourd (instead of wood) and is about 75 centimeters long. [3]
The instruments have traditionally been played to make "praise" songs for hunters, accompanied by gourd rattles. [2] [3] The instruments are used for entertainment, accompanying song and dance. [3] They have also been used in a religious context, part of the " bori spirit possession cult." [2] [3]
Xalam is a traditional lute from West Africa with 1 to 5 strings. The xalam is commonly played in Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Western Sahara. The xalam and its variants are known by various names in other languages, including bappe, diassare, hoddu (Pulaar), koliko (Gurunsi), kologo (Frafra), komsa, kontigi, gurmi, garaya (Hausa), koni, konting (Mandinka), molo (Songhay/Zarma), ndere, ngoni (Bambara), and tidinit.
The musical traditions of Central Asia mirror the immense diversity found in the cultures and populations residing in the region. Principal instrument types are two- or three-stringed lutes, the necks either fretted or fretless; fiddles made of horsehair; flutes, mostly sige at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown; and jew harps, mostly metal. Percussion instruments include frame drums, Tam origin of the bowed string Use of the bowed string is thought to originate with nomads who mainly used the snake-skin, covered horsetail-bowed lute. In Mongolia instruments like the morin khuur or horse-head fiddle survive today.
The ektara is a one-stringed musical instrument used in the traditional music of the Indian subcontinent, and used in modern-day music of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.
A setar is a stringed instrument, a type of lute used in Persian traditional music, played solo or accompanying voice. It is a member of the tanbur family of long-necked lutes with a range of more than two and a half octaves. Originally a three stringed instrument, a fourth string was added by Mushtaq Ali Shah by the mid 19th century. It is played with the index finger of the right hand.
A kukkuma is a small fiddle used in Hausa music. A spike fiddle or spike lute, the instrument is made from a calabash gourd covered with skin, with the neck that impales the gourd, the bottom poking out one side to form a spike. It is strung with horsehair and played with a horsehair bow.
A kontigi or kuntigi is a one-stringed African lute played by the Hausa, Songhai and Djerma. A 3-string version teharden is used among the Tamashek.
The akonting 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 term Tanbur can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other terms." These instruments are used in the traditional music of Iran, India, Kurdistan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
Angular harp is a category of musical instruments in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification. It describes a harp in which "the neck makes a sharp angle with the resonator," the two arms forming an "open" harp. The harp stands in contrast to the arched harp or bow harp in which the angle is much less sharp and in which the neck curves away from the resonator. It also stands in contrast to the frame harp which is a "closed harp" and in which there is no opening between the resonator and the upper tip of the harp, but has a third side forming a triangle.
African harps, particularly arched or "bow" harps, are found in several Sub-Saharan African music traditions, particularly in the north-east. Used from early times in Africa, they resemble the form of harps in ancient Egypt with a vaulted body of wood, parchment faced, and a neck, perpendicular to the resonant face, on which the strings are wound.
The Ramkie is a type of guitar usually made in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Malawi. It is made using a discarded oil can for the soundbox. It has three or four strings, made of fishing wire or bicycle brake wire, and may be fretted or fretless. The instrument has apparently always been used for repetitive chord-playing, not melodic patterns.
The veena, also spelled vina, is any of various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent. Ancient musical instruments evolved into many variations, such as lutes, zithers and arched harps. The many regional designs have different names such as the Rudra veena, the Saraswati veena, the Vichitra veena and others.
Lutes are stringed musical instruments that include a body and "a neck which serves both as a handle and as a means of stretching the strings beyond the body".
Trough zithers are a group of African stringed instruments or chordophones whose members resemble wooden bowls, pans, platters, or shallow gutters with strings stretched across the opening. A type of zither, the instruments may be quiet, depending upon the shape of the bowl or string-holder. Sound is often amplified with the addition of a gourd resonator. Instruments have been classed into five different types, based on shape.
The Maghreb rebab or Maghrebi rebab is a bowed lute now played mainly in Northern Africa. It fits within the wider rebab traditions of the Arab world, but also branched into European musical tradition in Spain, Sicily, and the Holy Roman Empire. In the late Middle Ages, the European rebec developed from this instrument. The Maghreb rebab was described by a musicologist as the "predominant" rebab of North Africa, although the instrument was in decline with younger generations when that was published in 1984.
The simbing is a Malian harp-lute, used by the Mandinka people of Mali, and the Mandinka and Jola peoples of Senegal and Gambia. The instrument consists of a calabash resonator, a stick for a neck, a metal jingle attached to the neck, and a bridge that holds the string over the skin soundboard in a vertical line. For comparison, lutes usually have the strings held in a horizontal line above the soundboard. The instrument has five to nine strings. A simbing from the 1790s was reported as having seven strings by Mungo Park.
The gurmi is a two or three-stringed lute of the Hausa people of northern Nigeria. May also be called gurumi or kumbo. In looking at the two-finger playing style used by musicians who play the gumbri, researchers have listed it as a possible relative to the banjo. Researchers have talked about the gurmi and gurumi as if these are two different but similar instruments.
Molo is the name given to a lute by the Hausa people of Niger and northern Nigeria and the Songhay people of Niger. In Ghana, it is called Mɔɣlo in Dagbanli.
The keleli is a lute of the Teda people of Tibesti, Republic of Chad.
Semi-Spike Lutes...garaya [plural garayu] (Hausa: Nigeria) (two strings)...garaya [garayaaru, garayaaji] (Fulani [Fulbe]:Cameroon) (two strings; gourd body)