We can say that the balafon is in a way the ancestor of the xylophone, marimba or vibraphone. This instrument of African origin dates back almost 9 centuries.

In Niagassola, in the north of Guinea, close to the Malian border, a balafon is preciously preserved and guarded by a family of griots; it is the “Sosso-Bala”. Without doubt the first of all the balafons.

The balafon consists of a frame on which there are often around twenty wooden blades of decreasing length. Each calabash corresponds to a calabash, the longer and thicker the blade, the larger the calabash, which serves as a resonator. The characteristic vibration of the sound of the balafon is due to the holes drilled in the calabashes, these holes are covered with cigarette paper or pieces of trash bags that vibrate when the musician taps on the instrument’s blades.

The different types of balafon

There are many kinds of balafons. Indeed, handcrafted, each balafon is unique in its shape, range, weight, size. In Guinea, for example, the balafon is generally quite flat with a range of C, F (with 1 B flat), G (with 1 F sharp). Diatonic scales (7 wires), the C range corresponds to the white notes of the piano.

For example, in Burkina Faso the balafon is often bigger with larger calabashes with a pentatonic range (5 threads) Do Ré Mi Sol La or Do Ré Fa Sol La … When you play on a pentatonic you can’t really making false notes, on the other hand it is more difficult to have original ideas because of course there are few notes.

The Marimba is the closest instrument to the balafon of a part of form and its sound. But the balafon retains all its nobility because the sound it provides is unequaled. The playing technique is very different, the repertoire is also fundamentally different.