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The talking drum is an Hourglass drum from West Africa, which can be used as a form of speech surrogacy by regulating its pitch and rhythm to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to change the pitch of the drum by scraping the cords between their arm and body.
Originating from the 18th century, talking drum players used tones to disseminate messages, such as news of ceremonies and commands, over 4-5 mile distances. A skilled player is able to play whole phrases. Most talking drums sound like a human humming depending on the way they are played. Similar hourglass-shaped drums are found in Asia, but they are not used to mimic conversation, although the idakka is used to mimic vocal music.
Five varieties of dùndún pressure drums of the Yoruba and the atumpan and fontomfrom of the Asante (Ashanti) are especially notable. They send messages up to , where other drummers relay them, quickly spreading news.
| (Fante, Twi, Baoule) | Dondo, Odondo |
| Bambara language, Bozo languages, Dioula language | Tamanin |
| Dagbani language, Gurunsi, Moore language | Lunna, Donno |
| Efik language | Obodom |
| Fulani | Mbaggu, Baggel |
| Hausa language | Kalangu, Dan Kar'bi |
| Songhai language | Doodo |
| Serer language, Henry Gravrand, "La civilisation seereer – Pangool, vol. 2, Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines du Senegal (1990), pp. 48–49, Wolof language, Mandinka | Tama, Tamma |
| Yoruba language | Dùndún, Gángan |
From a historical perspective, the tama (just like the Serer junjung), was beaten by the of kings on special occasions, such as during wars (a call for arms), when the kings wanted to address their subjects, and on special circumstances in Serer country – a call for martyrdom, such as the mayhem at Tahompa (a 19th-century surprise attack)Camara, Alhaji Sait, "Chossani Senegambia" (history of Senegambia), in GRTS (Sunu Chossan), (Gambia). and the Battle of Naoudourou, Joof, Alhaji Alieu Ebrima Cham, "Senegambia, the land of our heritage" (1995). See also :
where the defeated Serers (by the Muslim- of Senegambia), committed suicide rather than be conquered by the Muslim forces or forced to submit to Islam. Suicide is permitted in Serer religion only if it satisfies the Serer principle of Jom (see Serer religion).Gravrand, Pangool (1990), p. 40. The word "Jom" means "honour" in the Serer language. Gravrand, Henry, "L'Heritage spirituel Sereer: Valeur traditionelle d'hier, d'aujourd'hui et de demain", in Ethiopiques, numéro 31, révue socialiste de culture négro-Africaine, 3e trimestre 1982
In the 20th century the talking drum became a part of popular music in West Africa. It is used in playing Mbalax music of Senegal and in Fuji music and Jùjú music of Nigeria (where it is known as a dùndún, not to be confused with the dundun bass drum of the Mandé peoples). The talking drum is also used in ceremonial functions and events like weddings, burial ceremonies, private functions and most importantly it is commonly used by African bands as part of their musical instruments.
The use of talking drums as a form of communication was noticed by Europeans in the first half of the 18th century. Detailed messages could be sent from one village to the next faster than could be carried by a person riding a horse. In the 19th century Roger T. Clarke, a missionary, realised that "the signals represent the tones of the syllables of conventional phrases of a traditional and highly poetic character."James Gleick (2011), , London: Fourth Estate, p. 15.
Many African languages are tonal; that is, the pitch is important in determining the meaning of a particular word.Chen, Matthew Y. 2000. Tone Sandhi: patterns across Chinese dialects.Odden, David (1995), "Tone: African languages". In J. Goldsmith (ed.), Handbook of Phonological Theory, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. The Yoruba language, for instance, has three principal tones, low, medium, and high, analogous to tonic sol-fa notes do, re, and mi; different inflections of the three tones are then used to convey different messages. The same plan of three principal tones and their inflections also applies to how the drum talks in Yoruba music and culture. However, the Serer language and its relative Senegambian languages are not tonal, unlike almost all other Niger-Congo languages.Pozdniakov, Konstant in and Segerer, Guillaume (2017), "A Genealogic Classification of Atlantic Languages". (Draft) To appear in: Lüpke, Friederike (ed.) The Oxford Guide to the Atlantic Languages of West Africa, Oxford University Press.
The problem was how to communicate complex messages without the use of vowels or consonants but simply using tone. An English emigrant to Africa, John F. Carrington, in his 1949 book The Talking Drums of Africa, explained how African drummers were able to communicate complex messages over vast distances.Carrington, J. F. (1949), The Talking Drums of Africa, Carey Kingsgate Press. Using low tones referred to as male and higher female tones, the drummer communicates through the phrases and pauses, which can travel upwards of 4–5 miles. The process may take eight times longer than communicating a normal sentence but was effective for telling neighboring villages of possible attacks or ceremonies. He found that to each short word that was beaten on the drums, an extra phrase was added, which would be redundant in speech but provided context to the core drum signal.
Single words would be translated into phrases. For example, "Moon" would be played as "the Moon looks towards Earth", and "war" as "war which causes attention to ambushes".
The extra phrases provide a context in which to make sense of the basic message or drum beats. These phrases could not be randomized, when learning to play the drum students were taught the particular phrase that coincided with each word. This reason alone made learning to talk in drum language difficult and few were willing to take the time to do so. The extra drum beats reduce the ambiguity of the meaning. Ironically, when the West understood the mechanism of the drums, they had already begun to be used less often in Africa. Also, words often lost their meaning. In an interview with Carrington, he explained that when words that are not used often, the phrases that correspond to them are forgotten. When given the beat for young girl, the drummers thought the phrase played was in fact the one for fishing nets.
As emphasized by Finnegan, the messages sent via drums were not confined to utilitarian messages. Drum languages could also be used for specifically literary forms, for proverbs, panegyrics, historical poems, dirges, and in some cultures practically any kind of poetry. The ritualized forms and the drum names of particular individuals constituted a type of oral literature. Among some peoples such as the Ashanti people or the Yoruba people, drum language and literature were very highly developed. In these cultures, drumming tended to be a specialized and often hereditary activity, and expert drummers with a mastery of the accepted vocabulary of drum language and literature were often attached to a king's court.
The Tama of the Serer, Wolof and Mandinka peoples is typified by its smaller dimensions, having a total drum length typical of with a drum head diameter. This produces a much higher pitched tone than other talking drums of the same construction.
The Yoruba and Dagomba peoples, on the other hand, have some of the largest talking drums in their Lunna and Dùndún ensembles, with a length typical of and a drum head diameter of between . In Yoruba talking-drum ensembles, these large drums are used alongside smaller ones similar to the Tama, called Gangan in Yoruba language.
The predominant style of playing in areas further west such as Senegal, Gambia, western Mali and Guinea is characterized by rapid rolls and short bursts of sound between the stick holding hand and accompanying free hand, and correlates with the various pitch accent and non-tonal languages heard in this area. This is a style typically heard in the popular Mbalax genre of Senegal.
From eastern Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, towards Niger, western-Chad and Nigeria, (with the exceptions of areas with Fulani and Mande languages-speaking majorities) the playing style of the talking drum is centered on producing long and sustained notes by hitting the drum head with the stick-holding hand and the accompanying free hand used to dampen and change tones immediately after being hit. This produces a rubbery sounding texture to its playing, which mimics the heavy and complex tones used in languages from this area (see Niger–Congo tonal language chart). This characteristic style can be clearly heard in the popular music of this area, particularly in those where the talking drum is the lead instrument, such as Fuji music of the Yoruba of Nigeria.
In some ethnic groups, each individual was given a "drum name" which could be used direct messages to specific individuals. Examples from among the Beti-Pahuin of Cameroon are "Even if you dress up finely, love is the only thing" or "The giant wood rat has no child, the house rat has no child". Talking drum players sent messages by drumming the recipient's name, followed by the sender's name and the message."Drum Telegraphy".
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