Percussion Plus Honestly Made Ghanaian sangban - 12"

Introducing the Percussion Plus Honestly Made Ghanaian sangban - 12"

The sangban is a double ended West African drum, traditionally played horizontally. As the middle of the three drums that make up the dundun family (pronounced djundjun), it is often used as the soloist instrument playing complicated rhythms to the ensemble.

The sangban is a wonderful addition to music education settings; its tone is high enough to cut through ensemble textures, but it still has excellent resonance, and a booming tone that makes it wonderfully satisfying to play.

These quality sangbans are hand carved in Ghana using traditional materials and methods, and are wrapped in brightly coloured, intricately patterned fabric. The two natural hide heads are rope tensioned to provide accurate pitch and create the perfect timbre to underpin djembe music and other ensembles.

This particular sangban can be combined with the PP6620 10” kenkeni and PP6622 14” dundunba to make a full dundun set.

How to play the sangban

The sangban should be played horizontally, either laid on the player’s lap or on a table in front of them. This gives good access to either drum head and allows for maximum resonance. For ensemble work, it will often be appropriate to only play one end of the drum using the provided beater, but for more complex pieces or solo performances both ends could be played together, either with the hands or an extra beater.

Within a dundun group, the sangban is typically used to play the intricate, featured solo parts, sitting comfortably in the middle of the texture but still with plenty of power to cut through. However, with the two drum heads strung at different strengths, the sangban can be adapted into different musical roles as you see fit!