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The firikyiwa can be played on one hand
Word of the week: Pronounced free-chee-wah, and best known in Ghana and other parts of West Africa, this is a two-piece single-handed pod bell percussion instrument, with a round hollow iron shell worn on the index finger struck by the ring on the thumb
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Don’t look back in anger, but inanga
Word of the week: A trough-style traditional zither played in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the soundboard with concave sides and six to eight string pitches on the pentatonic scale, its evocative plucked sound is often accompanied by poetic, sometimes whispered song narratives
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The ululation of the wolf …
Word of the week: The noun of the verb ululate, meaning to to deliver a high-pitched cry, or howl, very much like that of a wolf in the forest, though it can also be applied to the human voice
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A dundun set of three drums from the Playing For Change Foundation
Word of the week: These evocative, onomatopoeic variants are generic names for a family of West African talking drums, particularly in the Yoruba culture of Nigeria, Guinea, talking drums that mimic human speech, rope-tuned and cylindrical with a rawhide skin at both ends, and played with a stick
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A traditional jejy voatavo
Word of the week: With a rich, resonant sound mounted on a calabash gourd, this Madagascan instrument is a stick zither chordophone, traditionally with sisal strings and three frets, extra strings strung lengthwise down the sides of the neck and strummed with the fingers to accompany the primary melody played with a bow
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The uhadi musical bow, like the umrhhubhe, with a gourd resonator
Word of the week: One of the world’s earliest instruments evolved from the bow and arrow, it is played by drawing a stick across the string whilst using the mouth as a resonator on the bow to add an evocative, often otherworldly tone to accompany simultaneous inward whistling
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Mbuti pygmies listening back to their own music in 1952
Word of the week: It is a horn-like trumpet used by the Mbuti pygmy tribes of Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also the name of a ritual to celebrate the precious life of the forest to these hunter-gatherers
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The xylorimba has a bigger range than either the xylophone or marimba
Word of the week: This week’s strikingly unusual instrument combines the higher range of the four-octave xylophone and lower notes of marimba, using similar wooden bars set out like a piano keyboard that resonate when hit
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What’s not to love? Aardvarks
Word of the week: It’s that appealing, nocturnal, burrowing African mammal with a long snout that lives on ants and termites, but is also slang in parts of the US for an mistake-prone person and even an uncircumcised penis
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