yelẽ, xylophone, balafon

Xylophone system of the Lobi people of Burkina Faso, described in Colnago (2007). The instrument itself (yelẽ in Lobiri) is a wooden gourd-resonator xylophone, varying in size and shape dependent on the variety. The most important variety for ritual and recreational purposes among the Lobi is the yolɔ̃nbuo, a fourteen-key xylophone associated with funerals that employs an anhemitonic pentatonic scale; it is struck with two wooden mallets wrapped at the ends with strips of caoutchouc (71). The language is tonal, with three register tones L, M, and H, and rising and falling contour tones (73). The surrogate system consists of a large repertoire of fixed proverbial/poetic texts which are encoded into melodies based on the linguistic tones of the spoken language: “une telle mélodie est l’ossature tonal de la phrase sur laquelle elle est construite [such a melody is the tonal skeleton of the phrase on which it is based]” (75). These melodies are heavily elaborated with non-linguistic arrangement and ornament according to the aesthetics of Lobi traditional music and the skill of the performer. While non-musician Lobi audiences do recognize some traditional texts on the yelẽ, Colnago emphasizes that the linguistic information in Lobi music is functionally undecipherable without an a priori knowledge of the repertoire, due to the segmental ambiguity and musical setting of the texts. Moreover, even musicians’ knowledge of the exact texts is (presently) imprecise, though their general meaning is well understood (80). Colnago describes the process of composition, which involves encoding novel (though premeditated) texts in new melodies (75).Though rare, some Lobi instrumentalists are women (77). Content includes proverbs/poetics and ritual purposes.

Colnago, F. (2007). La communication musicale comme élément d’identité culturelle chez les Lobi du Burkina Faso. Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, 20.