Instrument · Nigeria · Ghana · Senegal
Talking drum
A talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum with two heads joined by leather cords. The player squeezes the cords under the arm to raise or lower the pitch, so that the drum can imitate the tones of a spoken language. Talking drums are played in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and elsewhere in West Africa, and are known by many names.
Published 3 min read
What a talking drum is
A talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum with a head at each end, joined by leather cords that run down the narrow waist. The drum is held under one arm and struck with a curved stick or the hand. Squeezing the cords pulls the heads tight and raises the pitch; relaxing them lowers it. That makes it unusual among drums: it can slide from one pitch to another and imitate the rising and falling tones of speech.
Talking drums are played across West Africa and are known by different names in different languages. The best known are the dùndún of the Yoruba in Nigeria and the tama of the Wolof in Senegal.
How a drum can talk
Many West African languages are tonal: the pitch of a syllable changes the meaning of the word. Yoruba, for example, has three levels of tone, high, mid and low. A dùndún drummer imitates them by changing the pitch of the drum, and keeps the rhythm and stresses of speech. The drum captures pitch, volume and rhythm, but not vowels or consonants, so listeners who know the language and the context fill in the rest.
A 2021 study in Frontiers in Communication compared 30 spoken and sung Yoruba recordings with dùndún drumming by professional Nigerian drummers. It found parallel patterns of intensity and timing in the language and the drum. The match was closest when the drummers were deliberately "talking", and weaker when they were playing purely as music.
Drummers have used the dùndún as a speech surrogate for announcements, warnings, prayers, jokes, proverbs and praise poetry.
In the Yoruba ensemble
The lead dùndún, called the ìyá ìlù, is the one that "talks": it plays the spoken lines while smaller drums keep the rhythm. Drummers play it at ceremonies and festivals, and the praise poetry and proverbs it speaks are part of the Yoruba oral tradition.
The tama and mbalax
In Senegal the talking drum is the tama, small enough to be held under the arm and played with a curved stick. It is part of the rhythmic core of mbalax, the dance music of Senegal, where fast tama patterns interlock with the sabar drums and the drum kit.
Other talking drums
Further inland, the Dagomba of northern Ghana have developed a sophisticated tradition of griot music centred on the talking drum. Names of the instrument differ again in the languages of the region; the shape and the cords are the same.
Questions
What is a talking drum?
An hourglass drum whose pitch can be changed by squeezing cords, so it can imitate the tones of speech.
How does a talking drum change pitch?
The player squeezes the leather cords under the arm; tighter cords raise the pitch.
Can a talking drum say words?
It can imitate the tone and rhythm of a tonal language such as Yoruba, but not vowels or consonants; listeners understand it through context.
What is the talking drum called in Nigeria?
The Yoruba dùndún is the best known there; other peoples have their own names.
Further reading
Read about the djembe and the balafon, or about West Africa and African musical instruments.
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