As the balafon cultures vary across West Africa, so does the approach to the instrument itself. In many areas the balafon is played alone in a ritual context, in others as part of an ensemble. In Guinea and Mali, the balafon is often part of an ensemble of three, pitched low, medium and high. In Cameroon, six balafon of varying size perform together in an orchestra, called a
komenchang. An
Igbo variation exists with only one large tuned key for each player. And while in most cases a single player hits multiple keys with two mallets, some traditions place two or more players at each keyboard. The
Susu and
Malinké people of
Guinea are closely identified with the balafon, as are the other
Manding peoples of
Mali,
Senegal, and
the Gambia.
Cameroon,
Chad, and even the nations of the
Congo Basin have long balafon traditions. Often, balafon players will wear belled bracelets on each wrist, accentuating the sound of the keys. In some cultures the balafon was (and in some still is) a sacred instrument, playable only by trained religious caste members and only at ritual events such as festivals, royal, funerial, or marriage celebrations. Here the balafon is kept in a temple storehouse, and can only be removed and played after undergoing purification rites. Specific instruments may be built to be only played for specific rituals and repertoires. Young adepts are trained not on the sacred instrument, but on
free-key pit balafons. The balafon music of the Sambla (Sembla) people in western Burkina Faso is notable for its complex speech surrogate system, where the words of the spoken
Sambla language are translated into music in a similar fashion to the more famous case of
talking drum communication.
Gyil The
gyil ( or ) is the name of a buzzing
pentatonic balafon common to the
Gur-speaking populations in northern
Ghana,
Burkina Faso, southeastern
Mali and northern
Ivory Coast in
West Africa. Among
Mande populations in Ghana like the
Ligbi (Numu),
Bissa and
Dyula, the same instrument is known as
bala. The gyil is the primary traditional instrument of the
Dagara people of northern Ghana and Burkina Faso, and of the
Lobi of Ghana, southern Burkina Faso, and
Ivory Coast. The gyil is usually played in pairs, accompanied by a calabash gourd drum called a
kuor. It can also be played by one person with the drum and the stick part as accompaniment, or by a soloist. Gyil duets are the traditional music of
Dagara funerals. The instrument is generally played by men, who learn to play while young; however, there is no restriction on gender. It is also played by the
Gurunsi people of the
Upper East Region of Ghana, as well as neighbouring Gurunsi populations across the border in south and central Burkina Faso. A dance related to the gyil is the
Bewaa. The gyil's design is similar to the
balaba or balafon used by the
Mande-speaking
Bambara,
Dyula and
Sosso peoples further west in southern
Mali and western
Burkina Faso, as well as the
Senoufo people of
Sikasso, a region that shares many musical traditions with those of northern Ivory Coast and Ghana. It is made with 14 wooden keys of an African hardwood called
liga attached to a wooden frame, below which hang
calabash gourds. Spider web silk covers small holes in the gourds to produce a buzzing sound and antelope sinew and leather are used for the fastenings. schoolband,
Ziguinchor, Senegal, 1973 Historians Jan Jansen and Francis Simonis have argued that the Sosso Bala was in fact 'invented' as a historical artifact by the Kouyaté family in the 1970s. Regardless of the truth of this story, the Sosso Bala was named by
UNESCO as one of the Nineteen
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001.
Senegal The title of the
Senegalese National Anthem is "
Pincez tous vos koras, frappez les balafons" (
Everyone strum your koras, strike the balafons).
Mali A modern festival devoted to the balafon, the
Triangle du balafon, now takes place annually at
Sikasso in
Mali. == Famous players and ensembles ==