Dunun

Dunun

Dunun player at a Wedding ceremony in Bamako, Mali
Percussion instrument
Classification	Membranophone
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	211.212.1 (Directly struck membranophones, tubular drums, two usable membranes, single instruments)
More articles
Djembe, Mandinka people

Dunun (Malinké: [ˈdu.nun]; plural dunun) (also spelled dundun or doundoun) is the generic name for a family of West African drums that have developed alongside the djembe in the Mande drum ensemble.

A dunun is a rope-tuned cylindrical drum with a rawhide skin at both ends, most commonly cow or goat. The drum is played with a stick. Depending on the region, a plain straight stick, curved stick with flat head (similar to the stick used for a tama), or a straight stick with a cylindrical head attached at right angles near one end may be used to strike the skin.

Traditionally, the drum is played horizontally (placed on a stand or worn with a shoulder strap). For a right-handed player, the right hand plays the skin and the left hand optionally plays a bell that may be mounted on top of the drum or held in the left hand. The latter style is popular in Mali and originally from the Khassonké people.

Three different sizes of dunun are commonly played in West Africa.

Dunun are always played in an ensemble with one or more djembes.

The names of the drums are onomatopoeic, meaning that they sound like the thing they describe. This is common for West African instruments. Shekere (gourd rattle), sege sege (metal djembe rattle), kese kese (woven basket rattle), and kenken (a bell played with dunun) are Malinké onomatopoeic terms for other instruments that are commonly played together with dunun and djembe.

Dundunba, sangban, kenkeni, kensedeni, and kensereni are Malinké terms. (Kensedeni and kensereni are synonyms for kenkeni.) In Mali and northeast Guinea, the dundunba and sangban are often both referred to as jeli-dunun (also spelled djeli-dunun) because they were traditionally played by the jelis (French: griots). Among the Bamana people in Mali, the dundunba is known as khassonka dunun and the sangban is known as konkoni (played without a bell). There, the drums are headed with goatskin instead of the cowskin used elsewhere.