Research on Drums in Other Cultures

                                        Research Paper

DINDO

The first musical instrument that caught my attention is the Dindo, which is a conical drum with two laced heads. This instrument is from Ngombe from the Democratic Republic of Congo, I chose this instrument because I’m fascinated with drums, and being an African myself, I chose an instrument I was already familiar with. According to Oxford music, Drums similar to the DIndo are different from the Mangbele nabita, in that the cords linking the heads are supplemented by transverse ligatures sometimes forming an intricate network. The dingita, The Dindo Moana and The Ngombe Dindo are all dance drums. This Instrument is also similar to the Doumbee. I say this because of the way they both sound. The Doumbee is also an African instrument, Africans are known for their up tempo music and this is why I say the Doumbee and Dindo are very similar. There’s a lot of Drums related to Dindo and the list includes

SABAR

The second instrument I chose was another drum instrument from Africa. I chose this instrument because of its high tempo, I am a very high energy person, and I’m trying to make the instruments I pick to reflect sort of my personality on paper. The Sabar is an instrument found in both Gambia and Senegal. The instrument is created by Fine Carpenters (Wood Crafters), and what I find really interesting in this instrument is that all the Carpenter does is create the form of the drum from woods, but the goat skin needed for it to be a complete drum has to be put in by the drummer themselves. That is pretty interesting because you have to create the instrument you play, I asked a friend about the reason for this and she told me, it is believed that “only he that can create can be great” so basically, if you can’t put the goat skin in your drum, then you don’t deserve to play the drum.

The Sabar is the longest in the set of three drums in Gambia, The other two were Kutiriba which I almost wrote about, but I just couldn’t find a lot of information o it on the internet also the other drum in that set was Kutirindingo. These set of instruments are used in a very high tempo form of music known as Tatango music and dance. So in the set of three drums, the lead drum is the Sabar, and the Sabar is a narrow drum that has a rather conical than hourglass-shaped with only the very bottom flaring outwards, it used to be taller that the way it is now, but it changed because of mobility  purposes. The other two instruments in this set which are Kutirindingo and Kutiriba are shorter than the lead drum Sabar and also they are hour glass shaped. Unlike that of the Senegalese Wolof Sabar ensemble, the tatango instruments are not associated with griots.

Just like in Gambia, in Senegal the Sabar is also just an instrument in a set which is associated to the griots of the Wolof culture. Sabar Drumming is a very up-tempo type of drumming that is mostly used in community dance parties, or just traditional vents that require a lot of dancing. The nder is the lead instrument in the Senegalese set and it’s just to sort of direct every other instruments, and also sometimes the occasion that is taking place. The mbeng-mbeng just basically supports the nder while the col takes on bass accompaniment parts. These Drum ensembles normally consist to 6 to 12 players.

NGGO

The third instrument that caught my attention was the Nggo and this kind of went away from the direction in which I started, because the Nggo is a gong-like instrument from Flores, Indonesia. I picked this instrument also because of the up-tempo form in which it is played, and it also shares a lot of similarity to the African gong, except it has a wide and flat rim. Also what I find interesting there’s a very similar gong in the Western Manggarai province called the “Nggo Buka”. The most common type of Nggo you’ll see in Flores are the small bossed gong chimes similar to the Javanese bonang, but with flatter and shallower gongs, as in the Sumatran talempong.

Many of the bronze bossed gongs used in Flores are imported from Java. Larger gongs are suspended vertically by a rope passing through two small holes in their rim, either from a wooden frame or the player’s left hand, and are beaten with a stick held in the right hand and this is don because the gong is an heavy instrument, and they don’t the drummer to get tired before the occasion is over. What I found interesting is that the Nggo are beaten by different objects depending on the size of the Nggo, like for example the small Nggo’s are beaten with wooden sticks and that won’t work with the bigger Nggo, because that would break the wood. They also call the Smaller Nggo “Nggo loo”, and they call the bigger ones “Nggo diri”. Just like Sabars these are also often played in ensembles including one or two large gongs, a pair of Nggo loo, and a single Nggo diri. The Nggos are used to accompany social dances and sometimes it is paired with the goblet drum, to make it more high tempo.