The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, in modern forms usually made of plastic, originally of animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans and had African antecedents. In the 19th century, interest in the instrument was spread across the United States and United Kingdom by traveling shows of the 19th century minstrel show fad, followed by mass-production and mail-order sales, including instruction method books. The inexpensive or home-made banjo remained part of rural folk culture, but 5-string and 4-string banjos also became popular for home parlor music entertainment, college music clubs, and early 20th century jazz bands. By the early 21st century, the banjo was most frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, but was also used in some rock, pop and even hip-hop music. Among rock bands, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Some famous pickers of the banjo are Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs.
Xalam is a traditional lute from West Africa with 1-5 strings.
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.
The sintir, also known as the guembri (الكمبري), gimbri, hejhouj in Hausa language, is a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people. It is approximately the size of a guitar, with a body carved from a log and covered on the playing side with camel skin. The camel skin has the same acoustic function as the membrane on a banjo. The neck is a simple stick with one short and two long goat strings that produce a percussive sound similar to a pizzicato cello or double bass.
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.
Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta is a Jola scholar and musician from Mandinary, Gambia, who pioneered the research and documentation of the akonting, a Jola folk lute, as well as the related Manjago folk lute, the buchundu, in the mid-1980s. Prior to Jatta's work, these instruments were largely unknown outside the rural villages of the Senegambia region of West Africa.
Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum.
The ngoni is a string instrument and a traditional West African guitar. Its body is made of wood or calabash with dried animal skin head stretched over it. The ngoni, which can produce fast melodies, appears to be closely related to the akonting and the xalam. This is called a jeli ngoni as it is played by griots at celebrations and special occasions in traditional songs called fasas in Mandingo. Another larger type, believed to have originated among the donso is called the donso ngoni. This is still largely reserved for ceremonial purposes. The donso ngoni, or "hunter's harp," has six strings. It is often accompanies singing along with the karagnan, a serrated metal tube scraped with a metal stick. The donso ngoni was mentioned by Richard Jobson in the 1620s, describing it as the most commonly used instrument in the Gambia. He described it as an instrument with a great gourd for a belly at the bottom of a long neck with six strings.
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.
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.
Frame zither is a class of musical instrument within the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system for a type of simple chordophone, in which the body of the instrument is made from a frame.
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 garaya or komo is an oval-bodied, two-string spike lute from Niger and Northern Nigeria.
Molo is the name given to a lute by the Hausa people of Niger and northern Nigeria and the Songhay people of Niger.
The keleli is a lute of the Teda people of Tibesti, Republic of Chad.
