Kora (instrument)

The kora is built from gourd, cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator with a long hardwood neck. The skin is supported by two handles that run underneath it. It has 21 strings, each of which plays a different note. These strings are supported by a notched, double free-standing bridge.[3] The kora doesn't fit into any one category of musical instrument, but rather several, and must be classified as a "double-bridge-harp-lute." The strings run in two divided ranks, characteristic of a double harp. They do not end in a soundboard but are instead held in notches on a bridge, classifying it as a bridge harp. The strings originate from a string arm or neck and cross a bridge directly supported by a resonating chamber, also making it a lute.

The sound of a kora resembles that of a harp, though when played in the traditional style it bears resemblance to a guitar played using the flamenco or Delta blues technique of plucking polyrhythmic patterns with both hands (using the remaining fingers to secure the instrument by holding the hand posts on either side of the strings). Ostinato riffs ("kumbengo") and improvised solo runs ("birimintingo") are played at the same time by skilled players.

Kora players have traditionally come from jali families (also from the Mandinka tribes) who are traditional historians, genealogists and storytellers who pass their skills on to their descendants. Though played in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Senegal, the instrument was first discovered in the Gambia. While those from neighbouring Guinea were known to carry the lute, Senegalese Griots were known as carriers of a hand drum known as the 'sabar'. Most West African musicians prefer the term "jali" to "griot," which is the French word. "Jali" means something similar to a "bard" or oral historian.

Traditional koras feature strings, eleven played by the left hand and ten by the right. Modern koras made in the Casamance region of southern Senegal sometimes feature additional bass strings, adding up to four strings to the traditional 21.[4] Strings were traditionally made from thin strips of hide, such as cow or antelope skin. Today, most strings are made from harp strings or nylon fishing line,[5] sometimes plaited together to create thicker strings.

A vital accessory in the past was the nyenmyemo, a leaf-shaped plate of tin or brass with wire loops threaded around the edge. Clamped to the bridge,[6] or the top end of the neck[7] it produced sympathetic sounds, serving as an amplifier since the sound carried well into the open air. In today's environment, players usually prefer or need an electronic pickup.[6]

By moving the konso (a system of leather tuning rings) up and down the neck, a kora player can retune the instrument into one of four seven-note scales. These scales are close in tuning to western major, minor and Lydian modes.[8][9]

Kora (Bridge-Harp Or Plucked Harp-Lute) from St. Cecilia's Hall Museum, Edinburgh

In the 1300s, the traveller Ibn Battuta mentioned that the women who accompanied Dugha to perform were carrying bows that they plucked. He did not mention the number of strings, but this clearly shows the existence of harp instruments in 14th century Mali and could be the earliest written reference to the kora. The kora is designed like a bow with a gourd, similarly to Ibn Battuta's description, but Battuta did not go into enough detail about the instruments for them to be identifiable. The earliest European reference to the kora in Western literature is in Travels in Interior Districts of Africa (1799) by the Scotsman Mungo Park. The most likely scenario, based on Mandinka oral tradition, suggests that the origins of the kora may ultimately be linked with Jali Mady Fouling Cissoko, some time after the founding of Kaabu in the 16th century.

The kora is mentioned in the Senegalese national anthem "Pincez Tous vos Koras, Frappez les Balafons."

Nowadays, koras are increasingly made with guitar machine heads instead of the traditional konso (leather rings). The advantage is that they are much easier to tune. The disadvantage is that this design limits the tuning range of the instrument because string lengths are more fixed and lighter strings are needed to lift it much more than a tone. Learning to tune a traditional kora is arguably as difficult as learning to play it, and many tourists who are entranced by the sound while in West Africa buy koras and then find themselves unable to keep it in tune once they are home, relegating it to the status of ornament. Koras can be converted to replace the leather rings with machine heads. Wooden pegs and harp pegs are also used, but both can still cause tuning problems in damper climates unless made with great skill.

In the late 20th century, a 25-string model of the kora was developed, though it has been adopted by only a few players, primarily in the region of Casamance, in southern Senegal. Some kora players such as Seckou Keita have double necked koras, allowing them to switch from one tuning to another within seconds, giving them increased flexibility.

The French Benedictine monks of the Keur Moussa Abbey in Senegal (who possibly were the first to introduce guitar machine heads instead of leather rings in the late seventies) conceived a method based on scores to teach the instrument. Brother Dominique Catta, choirmaster of the Keur Moussa Abbey,[10] was the first Western composer who wrote for the kora (solo pieces as well as duets with Western instruments).[11]

An electric instrument modeled on the kora (but made primarily of metal) called the gravikord was invented in the late 20th century by instrument builder and musician Robert Grawi. It has 24 strings and is tuned and played differently than the kora. Another instrument, the gravi-kora, a 21-stringed electro-acoustic instrument, was later developed by Robert Grawi especially for kora players who wanted a modern instrument. Its playing and tuning are the same as the traditional kora.[12] The gravi-kora has been adopted by kora players such as Daniel Berkman,[13] Jacques Burtin,[14] and Foday Musa Suso, who featured it in recordings with jazz innovator Herbie Hancock,[15] with his band Mandingo, and on Suso's New World Power album.[16]

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  A kora player wearing a korte necklace, from the central northern Bandiagara Escarpment, Mopti Region, Mali. The kora neck and handles appear to have broken off. Late 1700s.
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  Sambou, jali of Niantanso, Mali, with a Kamalengoni (a relation to the Kora) in 1872.
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  Kora players in Sénégal, 1900. The koras are straight-necked, with handles, carrying cords, tacked skins and small, square soundholes.
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  Jali Fily Sissokho playing a 22-string kora, tuned with konso string terminations and strung with nylon monofilament strings, 2008.
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  Sona Jobarteh tuning a 22-string kora with open machine head tuners, 2017.
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  Playing position of a kora, showing how the strings are notched into both sides of the square bridge
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  The gravi-kora, an electric instrument, lacks the acoustic instrument's gourd-and-skin resonator.
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  Dinesh Subasinghe Performing a Kora Lute.
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  4 Koras showing 4 sides
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  4 Koras (zoom in version)

Kora sheet music (fragment of the score of One Thousand Sources, for solo kora, by Jacques Burtin).

As part of the oral tradition of West Africa, music for the kora was not written until the 20th century. Ethnomusicologists were the only ones to record some traditional airs in the normal grand staff method, using the G clef and the F clef.

Today, kora scores are written on a single G clef, following the Keur Moussa notation system. This notation system was created for the kora in the late 1970s by Brother Dominique Catta, a monk of the Keur Moussa Monastery (Senegal). The seven low notes that should be written on the F clef are replaced by Arabic or Roman numerals and written on the G clef.

While jali still compose in the traditional way (without writing scores), some Western musicians began to write partitures for the kora and adopted the Keur Moussa notation system at the beginning of the 1980s. More than 200 scores have already been written for kora solo or kora and Western instruments. Two notable Western composers for the kora are Brother Dominique Catta[17] and Jacques Burtin[18] (France), who wrote most of these scores, though composers like Carole Ouellet[19] (Canada), Brother Grégoire Philippe[20] (Monastère de Keur Moussa) and Sister Claire Marie Ledoux[21] (France) have also contributed with their own original works.

Derek Gripper (Cape Town, South Africa) has transcribed a number of West African kora compositions by Toumani Diabaté and others for performance on western-style classical guitar, and has performed some of these transcriptions on two recordings and in concert from 2012 through 2017.[22]

Master kora-maker Alieu Suso of the Gambia

• Toumani Diabaté (Mali)[23]
• Soriba Kouyate (Senegal)
• Suntou Susso (Gambia/UK)
• Sidiki Diabaté (Mali)
• Mamadou Sidiki Diabaté (Mali)
• Foday Musa Suso (Gambia, United States), recorded with Herbie Hancock
• Yerko Lorca (Spain)
• Jali Nyama Suso (Gambia)
• Jalli Lamin Kuyateh (Gambia/The Netherlands)
• Ablaye Cissoko (Senegal)[24][25]
• Tasana Camara (Guinea)[26]
• Mamadou Diabaté (Mali)
• Djeli Moussa Diawara also known as Jali Musa Jawara (Guinea, now playing a 32-stringed Kora)
• Tunde Jegede (Nigeria/United Kingdom)
• Sona Jobarteh (Gambia/United Kingdom, female kora player)
• David Gilden (Texas/United States)
• Seckou Keita (United Kingdom)[27]
• Guylene Solon (Haiti/United States, female kora player)[28]
• Adam Doughty (United Kingdom) [29]
• Bai Konte (Gambia)
• Dembo Konte (Gambia)
• Kandia Kouyaté (Mali)
• Kadialy Kouyaté ( Senegal, United Kingdom)
• Moussa Kouyate (Mali)
• N'Faly Kouyate (Guinea)
• Toumany Kouyate (Senegal) - singer and musician for O (Cirque du Soleil) in Las Vegas.
• Jaliba Kuyateh (Gambia)
• Jacques Burtin (France)[30]
• William Parker (United States)
• Justin Perkins (United States)
• Lamin Saho (Gambia)[31]
• Ballaké Sissoko (Mali)
• Papa Susso (Gambia)
• Alhaji Bai Konte (Gambia)
• Momi Maiga (Senegal)
• Marleen Stempel (Germany)

• Banjo
• Griot
• Gravi-kora
• Mandinka people
• Music of Africa
• Polyrhythm

• Eric Charry, Mande Music : Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa, University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Ousmane Sow Huchard, La kora : objet-témoin de la civilisation manding : essai d'analyse organologique d'une harpe-luth africaine, Presses universitaires de Dakar, Dakar, 2000.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kora.

• Cora Connection
• Kora Music
• History of the 'Keur Moussa' kora
• A history of the Kora, with an overview of its current practices, by Jacques Burtin (in French)
• Web-page of Dennis Havlena—Contains a number of construction articles for koras and accessories