Mali, Africa
Mande

Wood, cow skin, metal, cloth
1970’s
Chordophone – Half-Spike Lute – Plucked See Ngoni ba for further description.

The most common type of ngoni (nkoni) has 4 strings, 2 long ones and 2 short ones. The long strings are shortened with the left hand fingers like a guitar, the short strings are tuned to a certain note of the scale depending on the song being played and serve as melody or drone strings.   The playing technique for the right hand is very complicated and uses a lot of ornamentation, sound variations and also percussive knocking. This ngoni micin is smaller and higher pitched than the ngoni ba in this collection and at the top of the neck is a smaller ‘nyenmyemo’ (metal resonator fringed with metal rings).  It is tuned pentatonic. Instruments with more than 4 strings have additional short strings to extend the tonal range.