COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Lamellofoon_van_hout_met_9_bamboe_toetsen_TMnr_A-10436

Timbrh (pronounced ''tim-BER'') is an instrument belonging in

lamellophone A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician ...

class, traditional to the Mambila people of

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. The wooden base are generally made of thin woods or hollow raffia palm stems. The lamellas of timbrh, which can be in numbers up to 20, consists of hard leaf veins of raffia palms. It also features a triangular soundholes. In a typical dance accompaniment ensemble, three to four timbrh play together. A variant with a smaller box is only used as a solo. In an older, now obsolete version of the timbrh, the lamellae were attached to two parallel connected raffia leaf ribs cut in half.

Origin and Distribution

Lamellophones are from sub-Saharan Africa and have been distributed out of the continent through African cultural export. Lamellophones are divided into five basic types according to the shape of the lamellar carrier and resonator: 1. rectangular board with and without an external resonator, which almost always consists of a gourd half-shell, 2. shell-shaped lamellar carrier, 3. bell-shaped lamellar carrier, 4. box-shaped lamina and 5. raft-shaped or irregularly shaped lamina, each with or without a separate resonator. It is also possible to classify the lamellophones according to the social and cultural context or to its regions of distribution.

References

{{reflist Music of Cameroon African musical instruments