Ahardin is a

musical bow The musical bow (bowstring or string bow, a subset of bar zithers) is a simple string instrument used by a number of South African peoples, which is also found in the Americas via slave trade. It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1 ...

played by southern

Tuaregs The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern ...

consists of a curved branch held with a twisted rope of raw leather or bark of acacia. Serving as a

sound box A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vibr ...

, a reversed calabash is placed on the curved part of the bow on the ground. To hold the whole, the player presses her knee on the container. With the fingers of the left hand, as with the

imzad The imzad (alternately amzad) is a single-string bowed instrument used by the Tuareg people in Africa. Its body is made out of a calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, bir ...

, she defines the melody, while with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, she grip the string with a regular gesture vibrate. At present, the ahardin, an instrument whose manufacture is easily improvised, is considered above all as a game of girls. Tahardant, feminine of ahardin, is also the name of a plucked string instrument, a kind of guitar played throughout the region of the Niger River loop, by "court craftsmen" in the Tuaregs and by

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 repos ...

s in the Songhai.

References

{{Strings (music) Monochords Musical bows Tuareg musical instruments