Dunun: Gambia musical instrument

Dunun is a general name for a family of West African drums that developed together with the djembe drum in the mande drum group.

source of picture: rhythmtestament.com

The dunun is a rope-tuned cylindrical drum with a rawhide skin at the two ends of it, most often cow or goat. The musical instrument is performed with the use of a stick. Depending on the region, a plain straight stick is used in playing the drum,. Also a curved stick that has a flat head is also used or a straight stick with a cylindrical head fixed at the right angles near one end of the drum may be used in beating the skin of the instrument.

Traditionally, the drum is performed horizontally. For a right-handed player of the instrument, the right hand performs the skin of the instrument, while the right hand optionally performs the bell that may be mounted on top of the musical drum or held in the left hand. The style is well-known in Mali and originally from the Khassonke people.

There are three distinct sizes of the dunun that are being played in the West Africa: ‘the dundunba’, which is the largest of the musical drum and has the lowest pitch. The general size of the drum is about 60 cm to 70 cm in length and about 40 cm to 50 cm in the diameter, the second size is ‘the sangban’, which is the medium size of the musical instrument, it has higher pitch than the big version of the drum, the typical size of the drum is about 20 cm to 60 cm in length and about 30 cm to 40 cm in diameter, and ‘the kenkeni’ is the smallest size of the musical instrument having the highest pitch, the typical size of this version is 45 cm to 50 cm in length and about 25 cm to 35 cm in diameter. The musical instrument is always performed in an ensemble together with one or more djembes.

The names of the musical drums are onomatopoeic, meaning that they sound almost like the thing they describe. This is general in the West African musical instruments, example the shekere, the sege sege, the kese kese and the kenken all are onomatopoeic terms given to musical instruments that are commonly performed along with the dunun and the djembe drums.

In Mali and northern Guinea, the dundunba and the sangban are usually called ‘jeli-dunun’ because they were formally performed by the jelis. Among the Bamana people of Mali, the dundunba is also known as ‘khassonka dunun’ and the sangban dunun is also known as ‘konkoni’. There the musical drums are headed with goatskin rather than of the cow skin that is used in some other places.

Generally, the player of this musical instrument is known as ‘dununfola’. Precisely, the players of the kenkeni, the dundunba and the sangban are known as ‘kenkenifola’, dununbafola and sangbanfola respectively.

There are two main styles of playing the musical instrument. The traditional pattern of performing the instrument has the player using single drum resting on its side, either on the floor or on a stand and striking the head of the drum with one mallet and a bell that is mounted on the top with the other. A melody is produced across the interplay of the three versions of dunun. For the other style that is known as the ballet style of playing the dunun as it is used in the national Ballets, one player has command of the three dununs standing on the floor, permitting a more complex arrangement for the dance. 

There are wide differences on how the musical instrument is performed all through the West Africa. In Mali, the dununs are performed with just one dunun and a bell that is held in the hand by the player.

In some regions of guinea, the musical drum is performed without bells, or only two dununs are performed. In some regions of Mali, about five dununs are performed at the same time. In Hamanah, three drums are performed with bells. This style is one of the most known patterns of playing the musical instrument in the west, because of the influence of Mamady Keita and some other players of the musical instrument from Guinea. In Barnako, Mali, a style of performing the dunun with two drums developed. The so called konkoni have goatskin and are performed with no bell. The konkoni with the highest pitch keeps the accompanying rhythm and the konkoni with the lowest pitch keeps the lead melody and the solos. In the Khassonke province of Mali, the biggest of the musical drums has the leading role; that is making solo and leading the song.