The main instruments used in Yiri are: - the balaphone, which is similar to a xylophone and is made up of wooden bars,
- the djembe which is a drum shaped like a goblet and played with the hands
- the talking drum that is played with a hooked stick and can be used to imitate speech by creating different pitches and slides.
A Background look on Yiri
In Yiri, there six musicians each dedicated to a different instrument:
- Madou Kone - vocals, balaphone and flute.
- Sydou Traore - vocals and balaphone.
- Jacouba Kone - djembe
- Francois Naba - vocals, tam-tam, dundun and maracas.
- Keresse Sanou - talking drum
- Tidiane Hema who does vocals and plays the maracas.
There are three clear strands in Yiri:
- The balaphone ostinato - in combination, these produce a complex polyphonic texture.
- The drum ostinato - in this piece they play a relentless one-bar pattern.
- The vocal line - this is a simple pentatonic call and response structure.
Points to note about Yiri by Koko:
- The tempo stays unvaried.
- The beat is regular and unvarying providing a good beat.
- The drum ostinatos persist throughout the music.
- The dynamics are largely unvaried.
- Yiri is in the key of G flat major and is hexatonic meaning it is based on a size-note scale.
- The balaphones tend to play short patterns from high to low emphasising G and D. They have solo breaks in between choruses which are more vituosic.
- It is in 4/4 which is four crochet beats to every bar. However it does revert to other metres in a few bars such as 6/4 and 3/4.
- Syncopation is used mostly in the vocals and balaphone sections.
- The drums play a rhythmic ostinato which lasts throughout the piece consisting of a quaver and two semi-quavers played over and over again.
- There is monophonic texture at the beginning which leads on to be heterophonic.
- Balaphone at beginning uses tremolos and grace notes as decoration.
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