Sunday, June 1, 2014

drums

Musical instruments is the theme this week for Sunday Stamps and I have been eagerly anticipating some 2014 Europa stamps of the same theme, but so far none of my postcards have had any on them. So I resorted to searching through my older stamps and found these. All drums from Africa.
Up first is one from Upper Volta - which I admit I had to google to find it's current name of Burkina Faso (West Africa). With a bit more google research, I found this description

The body of a lunga drum has the shape of a gently curving cone connected by a hollow cylinder. A circular drum rim made of coiled-up cane wrapped in raffia grass fits over the round opening on each end of the drum's body. Goat skin is sewn onto the rim to make each drumhead. Cords made of antelope skin are strung back-and-forth between the two heads, holding them in place and enabling the drummer to apply the pressure that controls the drum's pitches. Alhaji points out that the pressure actually pulls on the cane rim, whose subtle movement affects the tension of the goat skin.
Players wear the lunga drum over one shoulder, holding it snuggly up into the armpit with a long scarf. A curved wooden stick with a flattened knob on the end is the drum beater.

1971
and below, there are two more drums, these from Chad (Central Africa), which I couldn't find any information on. 


on the left is a 
'shoulder drum' 

and on the right a 
'drum and seat' 

both from 1965

11 comments:

  1. A drum with its own chair...right up my alley.

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  2. For the lunga drum, the description fits the stamp illustration exactly!

    Thank you for joining in this week.

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  3. I bet they sound great too. I love African rhythms.

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  4. lunga looks very interesting, i would also love to hear these, right now!

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  5. It isn't usual to see stamps form Tchad, and this week you coincided with "The Postal Picture", how amazing! Anyway, your post is really interesting, thanks for posting the stamps and the information.

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  6. I wouldn't mind having a go with any of these but especially if I can sit on that chair.

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  7. Those are my kind of instruments. I am not musical, but I used to play the drum in school bands.

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  8. a lunga drum...haven't heard of it before...nice to see different kind of drums in different countries/regions...

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  9. Drawn to Chad, guess we both have a love of African drums:-) Its fascinating to see how how many different types there are.

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  10. Banging and thumping instruments have great appeal.

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  11. Stamps are miniature pieces of art. I love finding and receiving foreign stamps.

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