Kamele ngoni

[Paul]

Last year due to my fast approaching deafness from too much African ballet (the bells).. I took a trip to Bobo Dioulasso in Burkina faso where i spent six weeks on the kamele ngoni..
As a djembe player i find it a great form of relaxation. Whilst a string instrument it does not have difficult fret work like a guitar and often guitarists or drummers ask me to try it and both come up with interesting but different tunes.

My ngoni is eight strings though I think ten is the norm.. Its a five note scale and I tune it from the the bottom note up d-c-a-g-e-d-c-a.

I had an amazing teacher and a friend of mine from France spends six months a year there training..

Would be nice to meet other ngoni players and swop tunes.

[drummer]

I'm not a ngoni player my self but it looks like a interesting instrument.


Daniel

[bops]

I play with a Kamale N'goni player from Wassulu named Tani Diakite. Very hypnotic groove and such a beautiful sound.

I find myself drawn more and more to the feel of the music. Not only that, it's nice to take a break from hardcore djembe and dununs sometimes!

[Paul]

Got back for another four months of ngoni in Bobo, total convert now.
Exploring 12 strings now, wait till i get my hands on a reverb peddle.
Paul

[the kid]

paul, hows it goin,
i hear you have tuning keys on your n'goni. did you put um on your self. Any tips for doing this. And any recordings, or good instruction on the net that you know off??
cheers dude

[Paul]

Nothing on the net dude will try to put something up soon

[moontravels]

Hello,

Need advice as to where to go for 2/3 weeks to study teh Ngoni basics and buy one. Have nice connections in Bamako, but expensive, thought of Bobo, but dont have a lot of free time this trip so will have to be a bit more organised that random, unfortunatley.

Any advice appreciated.

I heard Bobo a great town to hang out in .

XCHandra

[bubudi]

depends when you're going

[Paul]

Yeah I love Bobo and have a great teacher over there called Drissa Diara, he is also excellent for Balafon...
Great place for music in general.
Can give you a contact and recomend places to stay if you like..

[moontravels]

Any contacts for teachers/places to stay much appreciated .

Thanks , CHandra

[skinsandstrings]

Found a great Ngoni maker in Dakar named Yakuba Kouyaté he makes all our koras too. Should be getting my very own ngoni this weekend and i'll post some pics if possible.

[learnmore]

I have just been given a 4 string ngoni from Mali. Can anyone tell me about the tuning and playing styles?

[skinsandstrings]

If it looks like this , i may be able to help...




One tuning i've used on these is as follows
Open strings from the thickest up should be C1, F, G , C2 so you get a droning octave on the higher C

You can use other tunings but generally the octave rule applies between the thinnest and thickest open strings.

[bops]

there are several different types of n'goni...

The one skinsandstrings is showing is called Xalam in Senegal or Jeli n'goni in Mali.

There is also kamale n'goni, donso n'goni and bolon. If you upload a picture, we can help you identify it.

[bops]

Here's some music for y'all... this was a fun show, although the recording isn't great quality because I recorded it with a MiniDisc recorder in a noisy bar. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Rockin at the Weary.mp3

(5.16 MiB) Downloaded 89 times

Tani Diakite: Kamale N'goni, Vocals
Andy Ewen: Guitar
Tim Gruber: Drumset
Tony Castaneda: Congas
Paddy Cassidy: Jembe