for other uses see Udu The udu is an African drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

 originated by the Igbo

Igbo people

Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...

 people of Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

. In the Igbo language, udu means vessel. Actually being a water jug with an additional hole, it was played by women for ceremonial uses. Usually the udu is made of clay. The instrument is played by hand and produces a special and unique bass sound http://www.schlagwerk-percussion.de/sound/ududrums/u80_neckudu.mp3 by quickly hitting the big hole. Furthermore the whole corpus can be played by fingers. Today it is widely used by percussionists in different music styles. The instrument is both an aerophone

Aerophone

An aerophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound...

 and an idiophone

Idiophone

An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...

.

Derived instruments

Utar is an udu with disk-like body with the hole on the top and the neck on the side. It can be played more like a conventional drum. Kim-kim is an udu with two resonating chambers connected by a short neck. Each chamber has its own hole. Based on the original udu Behnam Samani, a master in Persian percussion, created the Zarbang-Udu having one or two side holes and a membrane of natural skin placed beside it or in between them. This way the membrane and the holes can be played with one or two hands at the same time. This is a hand percussion instrument.

External links

• Sounds and pictures of udus
• http://sabamusic.se
• Udu video