The case of Africa

An instrument is important and very widespread in Black Africa : the xylophone. It knows in this continent a great variety of forms and has a wide range of names. One of these names has made its way up to the European languages : balafon (bala player). Another name has made its way up to American Spanish : marimba.

Some African xylophones are of rudimentary form : leg xylophone, pit xylophone, log xylophone. Others are of sophisticated form : blades joined to each other and fixed on a frame, resonator fixed below each blade. The resonators can be gourd-shaped calabashes, which is the case for the bala, or of tubular form like for the marimba. The timbila of south Mozambique have resonators precisely tuned to the blade's pitch. These timbila are of polished construction and of quite advanced organological concept. This type of instrument is the ancestor of the American marimba. It is also comparable to the gendér of gamelan. The main difference lies in the blades' material, metal for the gendér, and their music.

The African xylophone, which seems trivial at first glance, shows similarities with the gamelan blade instruments that can not result from chance. To explain the common origin, one can imagine four basic scenarios :

• Influence of a third party civilization on Africa and on South-East Asia.
• Influence of South-East Asia on Africa.
• Influence of Africa on South-East Asia.
• Collaboration between Africa and South-East Asia giving birth to the blade instrument. Each of these two people would have thus contributed by bringing their own ideas. This collaboration would have taken place
  • in Africa only.
  • in South-East Asia only.
  One can imagine, for example, that the first xylophones be born in Africa under a primitive form and that Austronesians have brought the idea of adding a resonator to each blade. That would have taken place locally, in Africa. This new type of instrument would have then developed separately in Africa and in South-East Asia.

In South-East Asia, rudimentary xylophones exist but are not as widespread as in Africa. Piphat xylophones are of more elaborate form. But the most elaborate blade instruments (xylophones and metallophones) are those of gamelan.

The blades in Africa are always in wood, it concerns xylophones. In South-East Asia, they can be in wood, bamboo or metal. Africa has no metallophones but knows a metallic instrument whose music is close to the xylophone's : the sanza. The term mbira, for this instrument, is not without recalling that of mbila for the xylophone.

The comparison between gamelan and African xylophones does not stop here. One must also consider the musical ensembles made up of this instrument. In South-East Asia, we know that it is the piphat ensemble and especially the gamelan ensemble. In Africa, what catches the attention are the ensembles of south Mozambique played by the Chopi and Venda peoples. These ensembles consist of seven to thirty timbila (the single instrument is called mbila) encompassing several levels of register, like in the gamelans : high timbila, middle-high timbila, middle-low timbila and low mbila.

One must also consider the music played on these instruments as well as the one played on entire orchestras. Whether in Africa or in South-East Asia, the blade instrument is adapted, by its very shape, to a rhythmic playing. One observes at once that the Africans make the most of the instrument, one knows well their rhythmical talent. In gamelan, it might be in the orchestration and another type of rhythm that a talent has to be sought.

One has to be aware of the disturbing similarities between these orchestras of the African east coast and those of the islands situated at the other end of the Indian Ocean.

Have the navigators mentioned in the India problem played a role ? It is still a mystery…

 

About the site…