Music in the Air!

Last Friday I started sharing information about West African Instruments and I hope you see their place in modern day instruments. I also let you know that the word griot is not an African word at all, but French. The correct word or words for the "storytellers/historians are Jeli (Mali) and Jali (Senegambian region), for females you add muso to the end of each word.

Last week I spoke of the Kora and Djembe. The Kora is a key instrument for the Jali/Jeli, so I think it's only fitting that I give you the two other main instruments of the Jali/Jeli, the Ngoni and Balaphone. Here we go....... 

Ngoni is the Bambara name for an ancient traditional lute found throughout West Africa. 

Several hypotheses have been presented concerning the origins of the Jeli/Jali lute. The prevalent view, as first presented by early 20th century musicologists, has been that the modern Ngoni is derived from the lutes played in ancient Egypt. These Egyptian lutes are then believed to have spread West across North Africa and down into the Mande region. However, is that if in fact there is a connection between the lutes of ancient Egypt and those of West Africa, then the Egyptian lutes more likely moved south and across the Sahel to reach their destination. It is equally possible, however, considering the lack of material archeological evidence (lutes being constructed of non-persistent materials including wood and hides) that either West African lutes actually spread to Egypt, or that the two instruments arose simultaneously.  

In addition to this academic view of the origins of the Ngoni, there is also a mythical, spiritual story of where the instrument came from. According to the world famous Ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate, the first Ngoni was given to his grandfather by a jinn, or water spirit.

Ngoni

Though typically a small instrument the Ngoni has a big sound and a big place in the history of West African music. Its body is a hollowed-out, canoe-shaped piece of wood with dried animal skin stretched over it like a drum. The neck is a fretless length of dowelling that inserts into the body, which unlike the Kora (whose neck goes totally through its calabash resonator) stops short of coming out the base of the instrument. For this reason musicologists classify the Ngoni as a "internal spike lute." The Ngoni's strings (which are made of thin fishing line like the Kora) are lashed to the neck with movable strips of leather, and then fed over a fan-shaped bridge at the far end of the body. The string closest to the player actually produces the highest pitch, and the player plucks it with his thumb, just like a 5-string banjo. This feature, coupled with the fact that the Ngoni's body is a drum rather than a box, provides strong evidence that the Ngoni is the African ancestor of the banjo. Boom an original African invention, the Banjo!

Instruments of this general construction can be found from Morocco to Nigeria, and everywhere in between. Some are very large, such as the Gimbri played the mystic Gnawa brotherhood of Morocco. Others are tiny, such as the one-stringed Gurkel of northern Mali. In Senegal the Wolof call it Xalam (pronounced: Halam) while in the Gambia the Mandinka have a 5-string version they call Kontingo. The version played by the Manding Jalis of The Gambia, Mali and Guinea is typically about two-feet long and has either four or seven strings.

The Kora, the Ngoni and the Balaphone are the three indispensable melody instruments of the Manding Jali/Jeli. All three instruments are found throughout the Mande world, but each has its region of dominance. The Kora rules in Gambia, and the world’s best Kora players are found along the meandering river that bisects that country. In Mali, the Ngoni is king, and if you ask a Malian Jelimuso singer what instrument she prefers to work with when developing repertoire, she will almost surely pick the Ngoni.

Guinea, the forested, mountainous nation that lies between southern Mali and the Atlantic Ocean, is the province of the Balaphone. In Guinea, some still talk about "the Sosso Balaphone." This is a historical reference, and it helps to explain the connection between a modern nation and an ancient instrument.

The Manding (Mandinka) Empire rose early in the "13^th” century with the ascendance of its first king, Sunjata Keita. The epic tale of Sunjata's transformation from invalid child to all-powerful ruler remains the quintessential legend of Jeli lore eight centuries later. Sunjata's chief adversary in this epic is Soumaoro Kante, the Sosso king, whose kingdom lay within the region we now call Guinea. Soumaoro was a sorcerer of fearsome power. He ruled with an iron hand, and kept tight controls on his people. 

As the story goes, spirits gave Soumaoro the first Balaphone, and he kept it for his own pleasure. No one else dared play it. During his wars with Sunjata, Soumaoro managed to capture Sunjata's close friend and Jeli. As a prisoner in the Sosso king's home, the Jeli came upon the coveted Balaphone, and ventured to play it. Though off on a hunting trip at the time, Soumaoro instantly heard the sound and returned to confront the Jeli. But instead of killing him, Soumaoro found himself deeply moved by the Jeli's performance and ceremoniously authorized him alone to play the magical instrument. 

Soumaoro dubbed the Jeli,  “Bala Faséké” —Balaphone player—and Faséké became the first public Balaphonist. He continued to play at high ceremonies even after Soumaoro's defeat and the rise of Sunjata. 

Faséké's death: the Kouyaté family in what is now Guinea became the official keepers of the original instrument, and there is an elaborate ritual for passing along the relic to the next "keeper" or Balatigui. The instrument has reportedly survived with only minor modifications.

Meanwhile, countless Balaphones using the "7"-note (heptatonic) scale of the original Sosso Balaphone have been disseminated throughout West Africa. And it is no longer only Kouyatés who play them.

The Balaphone is constructed from 17 to 21 rectangular wooden slats, arranged in an array from low to high notes. The slats are generally made from béné ( Ebony) wood, and are carefully dried over a low flame to achieve their sonorous resonance. The ends of each slat are burned black with an iron to seal them. The instrument builder tunes each slat by shaving its underbelly. Two rows of calabashes provide natural amplifiers for the Balaphone.

Balaphone

The design of the Balaphone has not changed much over the centuries. European travellers described the instrument as we know it back in the early 1600s. Interestingly, we also know that Balaphones found their way to the New World. There it was modified and is called the Xylophone, an original African invention! Boom!