tension drum, talking drum, kalùngùu

Drumming system of the Hausa people of northern Nigeria, described in Ames et al. (1971). Ames focuses on the drumming traditions of Hausa youth in Zaria (a city in Nigeria’s Kaduna State). The instrument itself is a ‘talking’ or tension drum (kalùngùu in Hausa), typically tensioned under the left arm and struck with a stick or with the fingers of the left hand (26); the drum allows for a gradient register of pitch, with maximum tension producing its higher pitch extreme, and an ‘open’ or uncompressed tone producing its low end. The language has H and L register tones and a tonemic HL contour; LH sequences on a reduced single syllable are simplified to H following a word-internal H, and simplified to L elsewhere (Jaggar 2001:14). Downdrift of alternating H and L is attested, as well as general declination which is suspended at the end of question sentences (14). In the drumming system, H and L tones are encoded with relatively higher and lower pitches respectively; gradient pitch allows for variation in drum’s starting pitch and register when encoding a given sequence, but the direction of tonal transitions is maintained, and a single transition typically does not use the instrument’s entire pitch range (Ames 1971:27). Closed syllables and those with long vowels correspond to a longer duration between strikes, or occasionally to a sequence of two short strikes (27). The timbre of the strike also optionally encodes some syllable types: “Slapping is a frequent way of realizing a short note whether high or low; simultaneous hitting-slapping is fairly common for a nonfinal long low” (28). Downdrift, declination, and question intonation are not reproduced in the drumming system (25).Use of the drum is exclusive to men, though women “may be able to identify the texts performed”; also, “drummers normally inherit their craft” (25). Generally, Hausa surrogate speech is composed of takee, or identifying phrases associated with individuals, professions, official positions or titles, and even folktale characters (5). Taaken sàmàaɽii, which Ames focuses on, is a subtradition associated with young men around Zaria; content of these takee are typically socially oriented, including praises, boasts, insults, and especially courtship, among other social topics.

Ames, D. W., Gregersen, E. A., & Neugebauer, T. (1971). Taaken Sàmàarii: A Drum Language of Hausa Youth. Africa, 41(1), 12–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/1159675