Talking Drum
The Human-like African Drum!
History
Cultural Significance
Talking Drum Construction
Why purchase a talking drum?
Extra Information
- The West African griot is a traditional role taken on by a member of the community. It is the griot's job to tell stories, compose new stories and poetry, and also sing and play music. Therefore, it is one of the griot's job to learn and play a talking drum. They are credited with preserving West African history by learning, memorizing and performing sung stories about past events, in addition to composing sung stories about current events. Their knowledge is passed down via oral tradition between generation of griots in families.
- In today's world, there is modern-day technology for communication. As talking drums were used as a way to communicated between villages, cell phones are a new and improved way of communication. Talking drums could only communicated so much because you cannot specify what you are trying to exactly say through the sounds of instruments. On the other hand, on a cell phone, you can directly communicate and speak words to another person.