Instruments
Wolof folk instruments include the xalam or halam, which is a five-stringed lute, very important in Wolof folk music, the sabar drums, an ensemble of seven different drums, each differently tuned, and the hourglass talking drum called a tama. The Qadiriyyah Sufi order use tabla drums.
Modern Wolof musicians have incorporated instruments usually associated with the neighboring Serer, Fula and Mandinka, including the Fula flute, the Mandinka balafon, the Maures tabla drums, the Mandinka kora (a West African harp), the riiti (a Fula single-stringed bowed instrument), the Serer instruments i.e. tama, the sabar, the junjung, and the Serer motifs and genres i.e. mbalax (from Serer-njuup), mbeng mbeng, baka, tassou, etc.
| “ | The Serer people are known especially for their rich knowledge of vocal and rhythmic practices that infuse their everyday language with complex overlapping cadences and their ritual with intense collaborative layerings of voice and rhythm... Many Serer communities are known for their longstanding preservation of traditional healing practices, nature-based sorcery and soothsaying, love of inter-community traditional wrestling (Senegalese wrestling) matches, and intense familiarity with the complex rhythms of the African talking drum called Tama and the dance and song that accompany it. | ” |
The late Serer-diva Yandé Codou Sène was a practitioner of the Tassou (var : Tasú), a "form of sung and chanted poetry central to both everyday and ritual Serer life that is also used explicitly by the Wolof, Fula, Mandinka, Bambara and other regional ethnic groups."
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