Calabash (percussion)

{{Short description|African percussion instrument}}

{{More citations needed|date=May 2011}}

{{Infobox instrument

| name = Calabash

| image = Festival du Bout du Monde 2017 - Sona Jobarteh - 001.jpg

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| image_capt = Percussionist (Mamadou Sarr) playing the Calabash with the bare hand technique

| background = percussion

| classification = percussion

| hornbostel_sachs = 111.3

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In African music, the calabash is a percussion instrument of the family of idiophones consisting of a half of a large calabash gourd, which is struck with the palms, fingers, wrist or objects to produce a variety of percussive sounds.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IYR4wHurL5YC&pg=PA1 |pages=1, 4 |title=A Contemporary Study of Musical Arts: Theory and practice of modern African classical drum music |volume=5 |series= A Contemporary Study of Musical Arts: Informed by African Indigenous Knowledge Systems |first1=Odyke |last1=Nzewi|first2=Meki |last2=Nzewi|publisher=African Minds |year=2007 |isbn=9781920051686}}

In Tuareg music, the askalabo{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sd6SAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT1309 |title=African Folklore: An Encyclopedia |editor1-first=Philip M. |editor1-last=Peek |editor2-first=Kwesi |editor2-last=Yankah |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=9781135948726}} is a calabash "partly submerged in water, drummed to mimic camels' hooves".{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/01/fatou-seidi-ghali-the-worlds-first-female-tuareg-guitarist |newspaper=The Guardian |accessdate= 6 August 2019 |title='My father said I should be looking after the cows': the first female Tuareg guitarist |first=Sam |last=Davies |date=1 August 2019}}

The calabash can also be used as a sound board: a finger piano (a flat board with a bridge on which prongs are fastened, that are then played with the fingers) can use a calabash for that purpose, and the gongoma is a similar instrument, using saw blades on a bridge affixed over the calabash—the blades are plucked with the fingers, while the player taps the calabash with their other hand.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xk4GTQ3BCzsC&pg=PA38 |page=38 |title=World Rhythms! Arts Program presents West African Drum & Dance: A Yankadi-Macrou Celebration |last1=Kalani |author-link=Kalani Das |first2=Ryan M. |last2=Camara |publisher=Alfred Music |isbn=9781457422331}}

A calabash can also be used as a resonator, in the case of the umakhweyane, a middle-braced calabash bow.{{Cite journal |last=Dargie |first=Dave |date=2007 |title=Umakhweyane’: A Musical Bow and Its Contribution to Zulu Music |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30249999 |journal=African Music |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=60–81 |JSTOR=30249999}}

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