Music Of Niger
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Music Of Niger
The music of Niger has developed from the musical traditions of a mix of ethnic groups; Hausa, the Zarma- Songhai, Tuareg, Fula Kanuri, Toubou, Diffa Arabs and Gurma and the Boudouma from Lac Chad. Most traditions existed quite independently in French West Africa but have begun to form a mixture of styles since the 1960s. While Niger's popular music has had little international attention (in comparison with the music of neighbors Mali or Nigeria), traditional and new musical styles have flourished since the end of the 1980s. The Hausa, who make up over half of the country's population, use the duma for percussion and the molo (a lute) in their Griot traditions, along with the Ganga, alghaïta ( shawm) and kakaki ( trumpet) for martial, state, and ceremonial occasions. These uses are typified by the ceremonial usage of large trumpets to mark the authority of the Sultanate of Damagaram in the southeast Zinder area ''(see Hausa music)''. Over 20% of Niger's populati ...
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Kakaki
The kakaki is a three to four metre long metal trumpet used in Hausa traditional ceremonial music. ''Kakaki'' is the name used in Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin Niger, and Nigeria. The instrument is also known as ''malakat'' in Ethiopia. An ancient instrument, the kakaki was predominant among Songhai cavalry. Its sound is associated with royalty and it is only played at events at the palace of the king or sultan in Hausa societies. It is used as part of the ''sara'', a weekly statement of power and authority. Kakaki are exclusively played by men. See also * Hausa music * fanfare A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets, French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introduction to an instrumental perfo ... * Wazza References Chad - Arts and LiteratureBBC articleat Internet Archive The Orchestra in the African Context Brass instruments ...
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Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a percussion mallet, to produce sound. There is usually a resonant head on the underside of the drum. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Drums may be played individually, with the player using a single drum, and some drums such as the djembe are almost always played in this way. Others are normally played in a set of two or more, all played by the one player, such as bongo drums and timpani. A number of different drums together with cymbals form the basic modern drum kit. Uses ...
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Nigerien Studies (series)
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Niger, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. The largest ethnic groups in Niger are the Hausa, who also constitute the major ethnic group in northern Nigeria, and the Zarma Songhai (also spelled Djerma-Songhai), who also are found in parts of Mali. Both groups are sedentary farmers who live in the arable, southern tier. The Kanouri (including ''Beri Beri'', ''Manga'') make up the majority of sedentary population in the far southeast of the nation. The remainder of the Nigerien people are nomadic or seminomadic livestock-raising peoples—Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Diffa Arabs. With rapidly growing populations and the consequent competition for meager natural resources, lifestyles of these two types of peoples have come increasingly into conflict in Niger in recent years. Some white French peopl ...
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Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch (; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist. He is considered one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of ''shared anthropology''. Influenced by his discovery of surrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style: ethnofiction. The French New Wave filmmakers hailed Rouch as one of their own. Commenting on Rouch's work as someone "in charge of research for the Musée de l'Homme" in Paris, Godard said, “Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?". Biography Rouch began his long association with Nigerien subjects in 1941, when he arrived in Niamey as a French colonial hydrology engineer to supervise a construction project in Niger. There he met Damouré Zika, the son of a Songhai traditional healer and fisherman, near the town of Ayorou, on the Niger River. ...
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Griot
A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader due to their position as an advisor to royal personages. As a result of the former of these two functions, they are sometimes called bards. They also act as mediators in disputes. Occurrence and naming Many griots today live in many parts of West Africa and are present among the Mande peoples ( Mandinka or Malinké, Bambara, Soninke etc.), Fulɓe (Fula), Hausa, Songhai, Tukulóor, Wolof, Serer,Unesco. Regional Office for Education in Africa, ''Educafrica, Numéro 11'', (ed. Unesco, Regional Office for Education in Africa, 1984), p. 110Hale, Thomas Albert, ''Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music'', Indiana University Press (1998), p. 176, Mossi, Dagomba, Mauritan ...
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Fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone than the deep tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught " by ear" rather than via written music. Fiddling is the act of playing the fiddle, and fiddlers are musicians that play it. Among musical styles, fiddling tends to p ...
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Flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist. Flutes are the earliest known identifiable musical instruments, as paleolithic examples with hand-bored holes have been found. A number of flutes dating to about 53,000 to 45,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Jura region of present-day Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe.. Citation on p. 248. * While the oldest flutes currently known were found in Europe, Asia, too, has ...
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Xalam
Xalam (in Serer, or khalam in Wolof) is a traditional stringed musical instrument from West Africa with 1-5 strings. The xalam is commonly played in Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; it, and its variants, are also known in other languages as bappe, diassare, hoddu (Pulaar), koliko (Gurunsi), kologo ( Frafra), komsa, kontigi, gurmi, garaya (Hausa), koni, konting (Mandinka), molo ( Songhay/ Zarma), ndere, ngoni ( Bambara), and tidinit ( Hassaniyya and Berber). In Wolof, who plays the xalam is called a ''xalamkat'' (a word composed of the verbal form of xalam, meaning "to play the xalam", and the agentive suffix ''-kat'', thus meaning "one who xalams"). In Mande, this is ''ngonifola'' or ''konting fola''. In Hausa, this is ''mai gurmi'' or ''mai kontigi''. Construction and tuning The xalam, in its standard form, is a simple lute chordophone with one to five strings. The wooden body (soundbox) membran ...
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Lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system). The strings are attached to pegs or posts at the end of the neck, which have some type of turning mechanism to enable the player to tighten the tension on the string or loosen the tension before playing (which respectively raise or lower the pitch of a string), so that each string is tuned to a specific pitch (or note). The lute is plucked or strummed with one hand while the other hand "frets" (presses down) the strings on the neck's fingerboard. By pressing the strings on different places of the fingerboard, the player can sho ...
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Niamey
Niamey () is the capital and largest city of Niger. Niamey lies on the Niger River, primarily situated on the east bank. Niamey's population was counted as 1,026,848 as of the 2012 census. As of 2017, population projections show the capital district growing at a slower rate than the country as a whole, which has the world's highest fertility rate. The city is located in a pearl millet growing region, while manufacturing industries include bricks, ceramic goods, cement, and weaving. History Niamey was probably founded in the 18th century and originated as a cluster of small villages (Gaweye, Kalley, Maourey, Zongo and Foulani Koira).Geels, Jolijn, (2006) ''Bradt Travel Guide - Niger'', pgs. 93-113 Niamey was of little importance until the French developed it as a colonial centre in the late 1890s. The town, then with an estimated population of some 1,800, was chosen as the capital of the newly created Military Territory of Niger in 1905, however, the capital was shifted to th ...
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Hausa Music
The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Sudan, Cameroon and in many West and Central African countries. Their folk music has played an important part in the development of Nigerian music, contributing such elements as the Goje, a one-stringed fiddle. There are two broad categories of traditional Hausa music: rural folk music and urban court music. They introduced the African pop culture genre that is still popular today. Ceremonial music (''rokon fada'') is performed as a status symbol, and musicians are generally chosen for political reasons as opposed to musical ones. Ceremonial music can be heard at the weekly ''sara'', a statement of authority by the emir which takes place every Thursday evening. Courtly praise-singers like the renowned Narambada, are devoted to singing the virtues of a patron, such as a sultan or emir. Praise songs are accompanied by kettledrums and ''kalangu'' talking drums, along with the kakaki, a kind of long trumpet der ...
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