Sabar

Overview

The sabar is a family of single-headed wooden drums of the Wolof people of Senegal and The Gambia. Wikidata classifies the sabar as a membranophone with origins in The Gambia and Senegal. The drum is played upright with the head facing upward and is struck with a combination of one bare hand and one thin curved wooden stick (galan) — a hand-and-stick technique unusual among major African drum families and one of the immediate physical signatures of sabar playing.

The instrument is played in graduated ensemble sets: the lead drum (nder) is the largest and lowest; the supporting drums include the mbeung-mbeung, the talmbat, the tungune and the gorong, each at progressively higher pitches and smaller sizes. The full sabar ensemble traditionally provides the rhythmic framework for Wolof social events including weddings, naming ceremonies and the sabar dance gatherings that share the instrument’s name.

Origin & History

The sabar is an old Wolof institution. The drum and its associated dance and praise traditions have been documented in the wider Senegambia region since at least the 18th century in European travellers’ accounts, and Wolof oral history traces the instrument’s origins much further back. Traditionally the sabar drummers (géwël, the Wolof equivalent of the wider West African griot class) were attached to royal courts and noble households, and the instrument was an institutional component of the Wolof aristocratic-dynastic system that lasted until French colonial reforms of the late 19th century.

After Senegalese independence in 1960 the sabar moved beyond its traditional aristocratic-and-ceremonial role and into the general national music. Doudou N’Diaye Rose (1930–2015), the legendary sabar master from a hereditary géwël family in Dakar, became the single figure most responsible for codifying the modern sabar repertoire, training successive generations of drummers, and bringing the sabar to international concert audiences. Rose’s Rosettes — his troupe of women sabar drummers, breaking the historical exclusively-male pattern of the instrument — toured internationally throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The sabar achieved global recognition in the 1980s and 1990s through mbalax, the popular Senegalese genre developed by Youssou N’Dour and his band Le Super Étoile. Mbalax is built on a sabar-style rhythmic foundation realised on a combination of acoustic sabars and modern drum kit, and N’Dour’s international success put the sabar’s distinctive rhythmic vocabulary into the global popular-music vocabulary.

Construction & Materials

A sabar drum is carved from a single piece of hardwood — Senegalese dimb (Cordyla pinnata) is the traditional wood of choice — into a tall narrow cone or tulip shape. The body is around 50 to 80 centimetres tall and 20 to 25 centimetres in diameter at the head; the bottom end is open and forms a small foot. A single head of goatskin is laced over the open top end with a network of leather thongs that pass through wooden pegs driven into the upper rim of the body, allowing the player to retune the head by hammering the pegs deeper or pulling them outward. This peg-tensioning system is the standard for the entire sabar family.

The seven main drums of the modern sabar ensemble — the nder, the mbeung-mbeung talmbat, the mbeung-mbeung tungune, the gorong talmbat, the gorong yegel, the gorong mbabas and the lambé — are graduated in size from largest to smallest. The lead nder is around 80 cm tall; the smallest gorong is around 50 cm.

How It’s Played

The player stands and tilts the drum slightly forward, holding the body between the legs. The left hand strikes the head with bare fingers and palm; the right hand strikes the head with a thin curved wooden stick (galan), about 35 to 45 cm long. The hand-and-stick combination produces three principal stroke types: a low bass tone (open hand strike near centre); a sharp slap tone (palm strike near rim); and a clear stick tone (galan strike on head or rim).

The sabar’s most distinctive feature is the role of the lead nder drummer in talking the dancers’ patterns. The lead drummer plays a series of named rhythmic phrases (bakks) that signal specific dance moves to the dancers; the dancers respond with the corresponding moves, the drummer signals the next bakk, and so on through the dance event. This call-and-response between drum and dancer is the central organising principle of sabar performance and is the source of the genre’s energy and unpredictability.

Cultural Significance

The sabar is the national drum of Senegal in the broadest sense — the drum that is heard at every major Wolof event from weddings to naming ceremonies to political rallies, and the drum whose patterns underlie the country’s most successful popular music. The Doudou N’Diaye Rose lineage continues through his many sons and grandsons (the Rose Family includes some 30 active professional drummers), and the women’s drumming troupes founded by his daughters have established sabar as one of the few major African drum traditions in which gender restrictions have been substantially modified within a generation.

In the wider Senegalese diaspora — Paris, New York, Madrid, Lisbon — sabar drummers and dance schools maintain an active community presence, and sabar dance has become one of the most widely taught African dance forms in international workshop circuits.

Notable Examples & Recordings

• Doudou N’Diaye Rose, Djabote — definitive 1990s ensemble sabar recording.
• Youssou N’Dour, Set and the broader Le Super Étoile catalogue — sabar in mbalax popular music.
• Group Saloum and the Rose Rhythms ensemble, contemporary sabar troupe recordings.
• Cheikh Anta Mbaye, modern concert sabar work.
• Aida Tirera and the Rosettes, women’s sabar drumming.

Related Instruments

• Djembe – the West African Mande goblet drum from a different but neighbouring tradition.
• Talking drum – the West African hourglass drum that also signals patterns to dancers.
• Tama – the small Wolof talking drum often paired with the sabar.
• Akonting – the Senegambian folk lute from a related cultural region.
• Bougarabou – the Jola single-headed drum of southern Senegal.

Where to Hear It

Sabar is heard live across Senegal at every weekend of social-event drumming. In Dakar the formal performance venues include the Théâtre Daniel Sorano and the Institut Français. Internationally, the WOMAD circuit, the Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (held intermittently in Dakar) and the Africa Festival Würzburg are major sabar performance venues. Recordings appear extensively on Senegalese label Studio 2000 and on international labels including World Music Network, Real World, World Village and Smithsonian Folkways.

• Wikipedia: Sabar
• Wikidata: Sabar (Q747604)
• DBpedia: Sabar
• Wikimedia Commons: Sabar

Learning Resources

In Senegal the principal teaching figures are the surviving members of the Rose family in Dakar, including Mbaye Dieye Faye and the various sons and grandsons of Doudou N’Diaye Rose. The Africa Tilibo school in Dakar offers structured sabar instruction. Internationally, the Tap Tap Sabar school in New York (founded by Mbaye Diakhate), the African Drumming Institute in London and various Berlin-based teachers offer sabar workshops. Method materials are limited; Patricia Tang’s Masters of the Sabar (Temple University Press) is the standard scholarly reference. A handcrafted Senegalese sabar from a Dakar maker runs from 150 to 500 USD; international shipping adds substantially to this price.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a sabar?
A single-headed wooden Wolof drum of Senegal and The Gambia, played upright with one bare hand and one thin curved wooden stick.

How many drums are in a sabar ensemble?
A full traditional ensemble has seven graduated drums, of which the lead nder is the largest and lowest-pitched. Smaller ensemble groupings of three to five drums are common in performance.

Who is the most famous sabar drummer?
Doudou N’Diaye Rose (1930–2015), universally regarded as the master who codified the modern sabar repertoire and trained generations of drummers. His many sons and grandsons continue the family tradition.

What is mbalax?
The popular Senegalese music genre developed by Youssou N’Dour in the 1970s and 1980s, built on a sabar-style rhythmic foundation realised on a combination of acoustic sabars and modern drum-kit and electric instruments.

Can women play sabar?
Historically the instrument was played by male hereditary géwël drummers. The Rosettes troupe founded by Doudou N’Diaye Rose’s daughters in the 1980s established women’s sabar drumming as a significant modern tradition, and women now play professionally in many Senegalese and diaspora groups.