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The Balafon
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THE BALAFON

The balafon is a wooden xylophone native to West Africa. It is an ancestor of the western xylophone and has many different names and has developed in many forms and melodic variations throughout the African continent.

Its origins are thought to come from Mali. The Manding oral history relates that the balafon was first introduced into griot tradition during the 13th century.At that time Diali Balafasege Kouyate was in service to Soumangourou Kante,a mighty warrior king. To Kante, the balafon and its music provided a powerful spiritual force and since that time the balafon has been incorporated into the musical tradition of the griots and also serves as a vehicle for recording historical accounts of Manding culture through music and verse.

The balafons that Suntou makes and plays are fixed-key balafons with calabash resonators. They consist of wooden keys mounted on a frame formed by four uprights to which are attached horizontal bars forming rectangles one above the other, the whole thing being held together with goat skin thongs. Spherical gourds, open at the top, are suspended beneath the keys.The size of each of these resonators is adapted to the pitch of each note. In order to accomodate all the gourds within the framework, they are arranged zigzag fashion, forming two rows, and suspended from goatskin strips.

The keys themselves are suspended over the resonators by means of two lines of twisted goatskin cord that pass through two "vibration knots". Each key has its own particular length, width and thickness. The keys are struck with two beaters with rounded ends, formed by winding the tips with rubber strips.

The tuning is related to the language that is peculiar to each ethnic group or to the scales of their songs. Many variations are to be found within each ethnic group.

The slats are generally made from a hardwood, and are carefully dried over a low flame to achieve their sonorous resonance. The ends of each slat are burnt black with an iron to seal them. After the rough cut, it is necessary to fine-tune the keys to the desired pitches. The fine-tuning of the keys is accomplished by thinning the centre to lower the key's pitch and by thinning the ends to raise the pitch. Suntou has a remarkable ear when it comes to tuning. On returning to England with the balafon he had made we tried it out with an electronic tuner - he proved to have almost perfect pitch.