It seems this weekend my music making endeavours revolve around this #Instrument. This is my custom "modern" Jeli ngoni (also n'goni, koni, xalam, etc.), which differs a little from the traditional one in that it has a larger bowl-shaped body, wooden bridge, neck-through design, geared tuners and CNC'ed neck, compared to the traditional long-oval-shaped body, spike-lute (i.e. partial-through-neck) design, calabash bridge, leather ring tuners and dowel neck. #Ethnomusicology#Musodon
@ekknappenberger 🤣 From a Ukrainian lute-zither, to a mandolin-type instrument (generally "banduria" is Spanish though), to the American banjo (originally a black instrument). Yeah, that lineage really lines up based on cultural contact, etc. 🙄 NOT!
Everyone I've ever talked to this about goes: West African lutes like the jeli ngoni, Caribbean (Haiti banza and other gourd instruments), American gourd, and later wooden-rim banjos. There's just no doubts about that migration.
@ekknappenberger BTW, Ibn Batuta wrote about the jeli ngoni around 1352, well before any Portuguese explorers reached West Africa, let alone Ukrainian kobzari (who were usually blind, and sadly got executed by the Soviets in 1935, and the instrument was changed to play classical music) having a ballad battle with Portuguese troubadours or something. But hey, perhaps there was some time travelling quantum stuff going on that nobody specialised in this subject can fathom.
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