African drum culture and customs

Drums are widely popular musical instruments in Black Africa and are also known as the soul of traditional African music.

The achievements and uses of drums are diverse in Africa. In addition to being used for music, drums are occasionally used as symbols of nations, tribes or religions, or are used to convey various messages, namely the so-called "drums that can be phrased." African drums have their own national characteristics, and the raw materials, shape and playing ability of drums are all strange.

As usual, there are dozens of basic drum shapes and hundreds of drum variants in Africa. Drum, as big as a water tank or as small as a teacup. The shape of the drum body is in the shape of a top, a cone, a column, and a square, as well as various birds and beasts, and even a human shape. Some drums are also painted with various shapes, engraved with flowers, humans and animals, highlighting the characteristics of black culture. Drum skins are also diverse. In addition to commonly used cowhide and antelope skins, leopard skin, zebra skin, lizard skin, crocodile skin, and even elephant ears are also recycled. Some devices are often added to African drums to achieve certain extraordinary results, such as putting some beads or dried plant seeds in the drum cavity, or installing metal plates, shells, and colorful beads on the edge of the drum. When the drummer cuts the drum, it will make a jingling sound. There are probably many ways to hold a drum. It is common to place the drum between your legs. Occasionally, you can also clip the drum under your arms, or hang it around your neck or carry it over your shoulders. There are probably many tricks to cut drums. People use their fists, palms to tap on various parts of the drum, and even effective heels to cut drums, so as to produce different sounds and results. It is also effective for beating drums. Ivory and human bones have been used to make drums in the past. There is also a kind of friction drum that uses a small stick to rub a drum skin sprayed with certain powder to make a sound. In Nigeria, there is a small drum that is played under the arm. With the pressure of the arm on the drum body, the pitch of the drum can be changed at any time.

Drum playing methods include solo, ensemble and ensemble. The beats of solo and ensemble drums are great and changeable, with cadence and sonorous and powerful. When a group beats drums or one person beats multiple drums at the same time, the sound of the drums is majestic, like a horse galloping, rich and exciting. In African life, dancing is indispensable and arrogant, and dancing is inseparable from drums. In Swahili in East Africa,"drum" and "dance" are the same word. In Togo's singing and dancing activities, when to play music, when to dance, even the pace and melody, must be instructed by the drum. Female drummers in Mauritania dance and beat drums. They sometimes tap the drum skin lightly with their fingers, like flowing water, and sometimes beat violently, like a river running. While beating the drums, they used their hands to beat their arms and legs in turn, making various postures, which was very touching. For example, in Burundi, 10 male dancers played on the stage while beating big drums, forming a semicircle. Then the actors took off the big drums and put them in front of their eyes. Put another big drum in the circle, and the actors take turns to come forward and play it. They sometimes jumped in the air, sometimes rotated and danced, and accompanied by praise. The fierce beats, the drums of the elk gathering, and the enthusiastic carnival were extremely outstanding. Drums are often used as a symbol of countries and nations in Africa. For example, there was a drum during Uganda's national expedition, which expressed a pedantic tradition. Since Uganda had four kingdoms before becoming a republic, the royal family of each kingdom had a set of drums of different sizes, each with different names and timbre. This kind of drum can only be used in a cautious place when royal weddings and funerals, when a new king ascends to the throne, and when declaring war on foreign countries. For people belonging to different power levels, the number of drums is determined. In the original Buganda Kingdom, there were 93 kings in the huge ceremonial drums. Chiefs at all levels were reduced accordingly. When changing drum skins, people or animals were also used to sacrifice their lives. This kind of drum is regarded as a sacred thing and loved to be admired.

African drums are also often used to convey information and speak. Drummers use different strengths and different parts of the drum surface to produce various different sounds. Coupled with the rapid and slow beats, various drum beats are formed, which serve as a signal to speak to convey various types of information. When the peace is in the morning and dusk, the drums can travel 15 kilometers away. The drummers beat the drums one after another, so that they can accurately convey "words" at an alarming rate-a place a hundred miles away can be reached in two hours. In the past, when Banshi Market captured black people, Africans used drum chatter to tell people to escape quickly, leaving Banshi Market with nothing. Drum language is also often used to invite people to intervene in public welfare labor, resist enemies, and report fires.

Africans also often use encouragement to express things that are not easy to express in words. For example, the Akan people in Ghana have a custom for husbands to sing about their wives with drum music at dances. Drum music can also be used to announce a person's birth, death and marriage.

In many places in Africa, drummer evaluation meetings are held every once in a while. At a "drum competition" in Ghana, drummers were divided into two groups to beat drums. First, bright and enthusiastic drums were used to praise the virtues and gains of the chief, then slow and refreshing drums were used to discuss ancient myths and legends, and then rapid drums were used to announce news and interesting events within the tribe. The great and changeable beats in the drums express people's various feelings, sometimes making people sad and sometimes making people laugh. People hold their breath and think about it for fear of missing a drum beat. The soaring pace of the "drum competition" is the "drum fighting". First, one group of drummers asks the question, and the other group must answer with drum beats and ask a rhetorical question, otherwise it will be lost. The audience gathered around the drummers to assist in formulating business strategies, participated in the war to cheer, and thought of ways to defeat each other.

In short, the most prominent and most important identity in African music is the rhythm. Drum is the foundation of the rhythm of long-term music and one of the most important instruments to express music. Drum plays an important role in the lives of African people that no other instrument can compare.