| Calabash | |
| Image Capt: | Percussionist (Mamadou Sarr) playing the Calabash with the bare hand technique |
| Background: | percussion |
| Classification: | percussion |
| Hornbostel Sachs: | 111.3 |
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.[1]
In Tuareg music, the askalabo[2] is a calabash "partly submerged in water, drummed to mimic camels' hooves".[3]
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,[1] 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.[4]
A calabash can also be used as a resonator, in the case of the umakhweyane, a middle-braced calabash bow.[5]