Handmade Senegalese Balafon / Xylophone

The balafon is a traditional West African percussion instrument. Like a xylophone, it has wooden keys that are played with mallets. Calabash gourds hang beneath the keys and act as natural resonators. Each gourd amplifies the sound of the key above it, creating warm, resonant tones with a distinctive woody quality. It is just as inviting to a two-year-old picking up a mallet for the first time as it is to an adult who has never played an instrument. Each instrument is handmade. The wooden keys are lashed together with cotton cord. Available with 6 or 8 wooden notes. Mallets included. Handmade in Senegal.