How do you send a message when your voice can’t carry it?
General / Expedition Base
Manning, Patrick. “Drums on the Move: An Exploration in Africa-Diaspora Studies.” Working paper, University of Pittsburgh, 2021. https://patrickmanningworldhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DrumsOnMove.Text_.5.pdf
DunDun demonstration played by Ayanleke Waheed Abiodun, Courtesy of The DunDun Centre, Abepe, Nigeria.
Material Science Path
Eke, O. I. B., et al. “Determination of the Bulk Modulus of Some Animal Skins Using Acoustical Method.” AASCIT Journal of Physics 4, no. 5 (2018): 76–80.
AIC Conservation Wiki. “Leather and Skin.” American Institute for Conservation. https://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Leather_and_Skin
Sorensen, Knud. “Drum Head Modal Vibrations.” Student research report, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. Sachs-Hornbostel Sidebar
von Hornbostel, Erich M., and Curt Sachs. “Systematik der Musikinstrumente: Ein Versuch.” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 46, no. 4/5 (1914): 553–590. [English translation by Anthony Baines and Klaus P. Wachsmann, Galpin Society Journal 14 (1961): 3–29.] Activities 2 & 3 — The Resonant Chamber / The Physics of Pitch
Fletcher, Neville H., and Thomas D. Rossing. The Physics of Musical Instruments. 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998.
Shannon, Claude E., and Warren Weaver. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949. [Source for the Encoder-Transmitter-Decoder model]
Cultural Systems Path
Manning, Patrick. “Drums on the Move.” (See above.)
Güldemann, Tom, et al. The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2018. [Niger-Congo language family divergence estimates] Activity 2 — The Voice of the Kingdom
“The Origin of Fontomfrom, the Akan Talking Drum.” Modern Ghana. https://www.modernghana.com/news/1170604/the-origin-of-fontomfrom-the-akan-talking-drum.html
Conrad, David C. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, 2005.
McCaskie, T. C. State and Society in Pre-Colonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Activity 3 — Adaptation and Legacy
Akinbo, Samuel. “The Language of Gángan, A Yorùbá Talking Drum.” Frontiers in Communication 6 (2021): 650382. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.650382/full
Durojaye, Cecilia. 2020. “The Dùndún Talking Drum of the Yorùbá Community.” The Arts Journal 9 (7). https://theartsjournal.org/index.php/site/article/view/1902.
Oluga, Samson Olasunkanmi, and Halira Abeni Litini Babalola. 2012. “Drummunication: The Trado-Indigenous Art of Communicating with Talking Drums in Yorubaland.” Global Journal of Human Social Science: Arts and Humanities 12 (11). https://www.academia.edu/24423918/.
Transformational Impact Path
Brown, Vincent. Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.
Dalmas, Antoine. Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue. Paris: Mame Frères, 1814. [Primary source for the Bois Caïman ceremony; composed c. 1793, published 1814.]
Fick, Carolyn E. 1990. The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Craton, Michael. Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Sherwood, Marika. 2007. “Perceptions of the Haitian Revolution in Britain, 1791–1805.” Journal of Caribbean History 41 (1–2): 49–73.
Wilks, Ivor. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.