Music
Local instruments
Balafon, drum, kakaki, flute, kinde, Lake Chad basin lutes (keleli, cegeni) and sounding calabashes are often handmade.
Sourced instruments
Each photo shows the instrument itself, with author and licence. The place is given when the shot is not in Chad.
Balafon
Xylophone with wooden bars over calabash resonators. Museum object (Museu Oscar Niemeyer); the same instrument family is played in Chad.
Credit : Wilfredor, balafon, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Drum / tama
Hourglass talking drum. Object, Côte d’Ivoire, Muséum de Toulouse. This Sahel type is also played in Chad.
Credit : Ismoon, tambour d’aisselle tama, Côte d’Ivoire, Muséum de Toulouse, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Kakaki
Royal trumpet three to four metres long, photographed standing in Ilorin (Nigeria). The same Sahel instrument is played in Chad.
Credit : Faridat Oniye, kakaaki, émirat d’Ilorin (Nigeria), Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Algaita / reed pipe
Double-reed pipe of the Hausa and Kanuri. Object photo, Nigeria; cited with Kanembu wind instruments.
Credit : Mplanetech, algaita, Nigeria, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Kinde / biram
Bowed harp. Object: Buduma biram (lake basin), Boubou Hama Museum in Niamey. The kinde of Chadian griots still awaits a National Museum photo.
Keleli
Drawing of the Teda lute of Tibesti: the only free image of this form (this is not a photograph).
Credit : Jacqke, dessin du keleli (luth teda), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Cegeni / lake-basin lute
Two-string calabash lute of the Choa, Afadé (Logone-et-Chari, Cameroon), lake basin. A neighbour of the cegeni named in Chad.
Sounding calabashes / hu hu
Sounding gourd (shekere type), Cameroon. The Chadian hu hu is a string instrument with a calabash resonator; its local form still awaits a licensed photo.
Credit : PROTechThor, shekere (calebasse sonore), Cameroun, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
In depth
Machine translation from French, under review. The French text is authoritative.
General sources on Chadian music cite a set of traditional instruments, presented below as they describe them. Local names vary from language to language; only names attested in the sources are given here.
The kakaki is a metal trumpet three to four metres long, associated with royal power; it is played only by men, at palace ceremonies.
- Hu hu
- bobbasse resonator string instrument
- Kakaki / waza
- long metal trumpet (3 to 4 m), royal ceremonies
- Kinde
- arching harp (Tradition of griots)
- Keleli
- string instrument of the Teda (Tibesti)
- Lutes and viles
- Tibesti region
- Single-anche flutes
- cited by the English source
- Flutes and drums
- Kanembu music
- Balafon, whistle, harp, kodjo drums
- Sara
- Drums and cithars
- Baguirmians
- Maracas, various horns
- widespread in the country
To be completed (not verified)
- Photos du Musée national pour la kinde des griots tchadiens et le hu hu (corde à calebasse) tchadien : à obtenir avec licence. Les photos actuelles du cegeni et des calebasses sont des formes voisines du bassin du lac / du Cameroun.
- How each instrument is made and tuned, and its local names: to be documented with musicians and ethnomusicological sources.
Sources
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