Essay Sample on The "Talking Drum" of Nigeria and the rest of Africa

Introduction

The traditional talking drum symbolizes a significant instrument of communication commonly used in African society. In most of these communities, the talking drum serves as the voice of every single person and thus sends out the messages of the entire people as reached upon. As such, the talking drum has been crafted in such a way that it promotes grassroots mobilization that in turn vouch for the developmental needs of the society. This paper, therefore, represents as an argumentative essay on the talking drum of Nigeria as well as other African countries. It argues that despite the talking drum being understood as a major instrument of communication, it is also regarded as a living being. Also, the paper discusses the rich history of the talking drum and outlines several instances where the drum has been used. Therefore, this paper asserts that the talking drum as a traditional form of communication is an important and integral part of the African origin.

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Traditional communication has always been a vital part of human development. Usually, it touches all spheres of life and ensures peaceful co-existence as well as meaningful development in any society. As such, it encompasses the process of conveying information and messages through avenues which in turn links individuals to their symbolic codes and languages (Ushe, 2013).

Humans have been made in such a way that they feel the urge to socialize, explore and develop, and this has in turn given them the chance to interrelate with their economic political and social environment. This communication is enabled via the progression of communication. In African society, for example, traditional communication represents the most ancient form of communication that exists. (Brown, 1999).

It has been argued that the traditional modes of communication were as a result of existing interplay between the communities, conflicts, customs, harmonies, cultural convergences, strife, interpersonal relations, codes, divergences, and moral traditions. As such, these traditional forms of communication acknowledged the presence of traditional structures and various forms of communication that made possible the symbolic and verbal aspects of group and interpersonal communications. They included; town crier, gong, and the talking drum among others.

Therefore, there existed two major forms of communication, that is; the verbal channel which consisted of articulated words, and other means such as tribal associations, spiritual groups, chiefs, and marketplaces. The second major form of communication was the non-verbal form and comprised of; gong, rattles, idiophones, cryptic writing, and decorated raffia (Wilson, 1987).

In numerous African groups, the Talking Drum functions as a powerful channel that facilitates traditional communication. It is the utmost efficient old-fashioned communication technique used in rural areas and villages to augment grassroots enlistment for the development of the community as no development could sufficiently occur without the rural inhabitants participating. It was clear that a familiar messaging network could bring about this type of change. Nonetheless, societies in the rural parts that made up about 80% of African populace have partly being shut out of this fundamental progression of human growth. Consequently, their chief mode of communication is typically the traditional forms of communicating which is the bottom line of this work.

History of the Talking Drums

The talking drums are shaped like an hourglass and represent one of the ancient forms of communication instruments used in West Africa. Their history can be traced back to the Yoruba society, the Empire of Ghana, as well as the Hausa folks (Ushe, 2013). The Yoruba folks originally from Benin and South West Nigeria, and the Dagomba of Northern Ghana established a complex category of songs known as Griot that used the talking drum as the main instrument (Ushe, 2013).

The interaction with and usage of talking drums as a mode of communicating was initially discerned by a European in the early 18th century. Informative communications could be directed from one area or community to the subsequent much quicker than a delivery man on a horse could deliver it. In the 19th Century, therefore, Rodger Clarke a missionary comprehended that the signs that were being sent out by the talking drums represented the tenors of different syllables of regular expressions of traditional but greatly poetic characters (Horton, 1967).

However, just as Cantonese and Mandarin, the African lingos were tonal. That means the pitch was significant in decoding the connotation of a specific message. The main issue, however, was how intricate messages could be conversed and decoded without the utilization of consonants or vowels and instead just using a tone. That was when an immigrant to Africa known as John Carrington wrote his book titled 'the Talking Drums of Africa' and described how Africans were capable of using the talking drums to communicate very intricate messages over very long distances.

He further described how he discovered that every short word that was struck on the drum was complemented by an additional phrase that would appear multiple times in the speech with the essence of providing context to the main drum signal. For instance, the drummers would translate the message come back home as "Make your feet come back the way they went, make your legs come back the way they went, plant your feet and your legs below, in the village which belongs to us." (Ushe, 2013).

The additional phrases were incorporated to provide a context that would facilitate an easier understanding of the basic message that was sent out by the beats of the drums. Also, the additional drum beats assisted in reducing the vagueness of the message so that it could be easily understood. Nonetheless, there existed some irony in that by the time the west was able to fully grasp the importance and mode of function of the talking drums, their use in Africa had already started to diminish (Myers, 1987).

Therefore, with time, numerous forms of the talking drums were developed with the majority of them being shaped like an hourglass. Soon after, other designs of the talking drums were developed, but this time they did not resemble the hourglass. There were assigned different names such as sangban, dunan, kenkeni, ngoma and fontomfrom. However, these new designs were only limited to West Africa with the exceptions of Cameroon as well as Western Chad. These were regions that both shared inhabitants who belonged to groups that were the largest in West African border countries for instance; Djerma, Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri (Ushe, 2013).

Furthermore, the talking drum has been used all across Africa for a long time as a means of entertainment, alertness, and notification in most places including palaces and during parties or ceremonies. As insinuated, the talking drums are believed to impersonate languages by mimicking intonations and different rhythms of words pronounced consequently; it is possible for the diverse pitches of the drums to be altered subject to how the drummer hits the drums or how they shift the tension. These pitches, in turn, reflect the voices of the people hence the name the talking drum (Horton, 1967).

From way back, the talking drums were utilized for numerous purposes, for instance, bringing people together, settling disputes, communicating messages across different villages, or to remind the people about a particular thing or activities that were meant to happen shortly within the community. Today, the purposes of the talking drums have slightly changed. Some of the common purposes include; to praise people who have done well or curse those that have gone astray. Secondly, it is employed to praise gods, invoke the spirits of the ancestors, welcome guests into the homesteads, create conversational proverbs and amend errors of the society. Conversational proverbs are often generated to communicate with the elders and forms a part of the recitals of ancestry or royal ceremonies.

The Talking Drum is also employed during festivals, setting up of Chiefs, naming rituals, matrimonial or funeral rituals of significant characters in African traditional culture. It is also employed in warning and limiting the Kings from doing wrongs and helps them become mindful of their actions. One of the notable characteristics of the Talking Drum is its capability to initiate the intonations and rhythms of the vocal word easily.

The drum also replicates the sound of wise sayings or admiration melodies via experienced artists or particular "drum language" The explicit pattern of rhythms and drumming is closely related to mystical beings linked to the traditional Yoruba conviction structure formerly distinguished in Nigeria and some regions of Ghana. Therefore: The Akan communities strongly honor the Talking Drum and its instrumentalist who performs the Akan mode of the talking drum (Ushe, 2013).

He is believed to be the most distinguished of all drummers as he is knowledgeable about the working of the drum; the proficiency required by his occupation and the responsibility he performs as a principal instrumentalist in all groups for which the drums are utilized. Talking Drum is commonly recognized by well-informed listeners, and they possess the capabilities to move persons to perform their duties in African society.

Aside from passing on announcements and messages, the Talking Drum language was employed as the most popular kind of manifestation. Amongst the Hausa and partly the Yoruba originally from Nigeria, for instance, names used for praise as well as the title of leaders were communicated through the horn or the drum as a means of disseminating information. This, in turn, shows that every individual in the society had traditional and indigenous channels of messaging which outlined its organizational development and existence.

These approaches of communication and networks made up the foundation for which societies, particularly the rural people, administrators, and planners used to learn how to influence purposeful social and economic modifications and how first to recognize such public means of communication and networks and use them to deliver to the individuals all the information about the alterations. Communication, be it scientific or traditional, the broadcast of messages was generally from the central region or source of another terminus. This consequently made up the bloodstream of each of the communities (Brown, 1999).

As such, the traditional forms of communication which existed, for instance, songs, popular sayings, proverbs, dances, artistic music, theatrical elements, religious customs, textile and wool, and pottery, all belonged to the community and were therefore regarded to as properties of the society. On the other hand, the clan heads of the communities also known as villagers only acted as heads and trustees of the gate guarding process.

This meant that even if special or mundane communication was required, that is; communication between the long-dead persons and the living, or the spiritual and supernatural creatures the manner of communication would only be across sacrifices, spiritual chants, trance, the deliverance of the leader of the public or through seance.

For these reasons, multi-dimensional methods of communicating and operation have turned out to be more prevalent in most African communities. Nonetheless, the establishment of western schooling together with Christianity religion has penetrated the progression of old-fashioned communication, predominantly the exercise of the consecrated drum. In other African communities, for example, the Igbo, Tiv, Hausa and Yoruba and Edo among others, the old-fashioned routine of the holy drum has b...