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Balafon Gourd Xylophone

Also known as Bala · balafon

The balafon is a wooden-bar instrument of the Mande peoples of Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso. Each bar hangs over a dried gourd, and players strike the bars with two soft mallets, answering and echoing short phrases.

Play the previewAbout this tradition
Balafon Gourd Xylophone: photograph by OhWeh
Photo: OhWeh, CC BY-SA 2.5, source on Wikimedia Commons
Balafon Gourd Xylophone: the game in attract modeLive previewPlay

Runs in your browser, works offline once loaded.

How to play

  1. Twelve bars lie in order of pitch, shortest and highest on the right.
  2. Listen to the phrase the instrument plays and watch the bars light up.
  3. Then echo it: strike the same bars in the same rhythm.
  4. Each song has four short phrases; try the pairs, then the five-note frame.
Rules at a glance
  • The bars follow an almost equal division of the octave into seven steps, each about 171 cents.
  • Each phrase is four beats; the computer plays it, then you echo it.
  • A stroke on the beat is perfect, a near one is good, and extra strokes cost points.
  • The five-note frame leaves out two of the seven notes, as pentatonic instruments do.

About the tradition

Balafons are played across the Mande lands of West Africa, from solo pieces to ensembles with drums and song. Makers carve bars from slowly dried hardwood and tune them by shaving the wood, and the craft passes from family to family.

Origins

Usually placed in the era of Crossroads and Golden Ages (about 500 to 1500), although its exact origins are uncertain, within the cultural world of Africa: Sahel, West and Central.

Credits

Sources

Get the app

Balafon Gourd Xylophone is one of 10 drums and rhythms in the Drum Music of the World app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Live on Google Play. Submitted to the App Store; in review, and the store link appears here the day it goes live. One app, many traditions, no account needed.

See all 10 drums and rhythms in the app

In review on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

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