GROUP 1:

IDIOPHONES
 WHAT IS AN IDIOPHONE?

• Idiophones are percussion instruments that are

either struck with a mallet or against one another.
It is a type of musical instrument that does not
need the use of air flow, strings, membranes or
electricity.
African music incorporates all the major
instrumental genre of Western music, including
strings, winds, and percussion, along with a
tremendous variety of specific African musical
instruments for solo or ensemble playing.
INSTRUMENTS UNDER
IDIOPHONES
 BALAFON
• The Balafon is a West Africa xylophone. It is a
pitched percussion instrument with bars from logs
or bamboo.
 RATTLES
• Rattles are vessels made of seashells, tin, basketry,
animal hoofs, horn, wood, metal, cocoons, palm kernels,
or tortoise shells. These may range from single to
several objects that are either joined or suspended to
create sound as they hit each other.
 AGOGO
• It is a single bell or multiple bells that had its origins in
traditional Yoruba music as well in the samba bateria
(percussion) ensembles. The agogo may be called “the
oldest samba instrument based on West African
Yoruba single or double bells”. It has the highest pitch
among the bateria instruments.
 ATINGTING KON
• Atingting Kon are slit gongs used as communication
between villages. Traditionally, they were carved out of
wood to resemble ancestors and had a slit opening at the
bottom. Gong “languages,” composed of a series of
beats and pauses, made it possible to send highly
specific messages.
 SLIT DRUM
• The slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument. It is
usually carved or constructed from bamboo or word into
a box with one or more slits on the top. If the resultant
tongues are different in width or thickness, the drum can
produce two different pitches.
 DJEMBE
• The West African Djembe is one of the best-known African
drums. It is shaped like a large goblet and played with bear
hands. The body is carved from a hollowed trunk and is
covered with goat skin. They come in different shapes and
sizes. Some can have one head while others can have two. The
bigger the drum, the lower the tone or pitch. The more tension
in the drum head, the more higher the tone produced.
 SHEKERE
• The shekere is a type of gourd and shell megaphone
from West Africa, consisting of dried gourd with beads
woven into a net covering the gourd.
 RASP
• A rasp, or a scraper, is a hand percussion instrument
whose sound is produced by scraping the notches on a
piece of wood with a stick, creating a series of rattling
effects.
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