Watch | How to make a Cape Verdean cimboa

As part of this video content project, production companies across Africa were awarded grants to produce videos that take the viewer through the step-by-step process of making instruments central to the cultural identity of the people who make and play them.

The first iteration of the pan-African video project comprises five instruments drawn from Nigeria, Tunisia, Cape Verde and Sudan – aimed at preserving the fast-disappearing intergenerational knowledge of indigenous instrument making on the continent. 

In the video below, viewers are taken through the process of making a Cape Verdean cimboa – a chordophone traditionally used to accompany the batuque dances of the Atlantic Ocean archipelago. The single-stringed instrument is played with a bow and comprises a neck that is attached to a sound box made out of a calabash. 

More about the Instrument Building and Repair project

The overarching objective of Music In Africa Foundation’s Instrument Building and Repair project is to encourage the formalisation and professionalisation of instrument making and repair in Africa, especially in relation to indigenous African instruments. This project has enabled the Foundation to train young people to make instruments, while providing online tutorials to a wider audience across the continent. The programme also includes performances and public dialogues around African instruments. The Instrument Building and Repair project is funded by the International 2020 Relief Fund for Oganisations in Culture and Education – an initiative of the German Foreign Ministry and Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Siemens Stiftung and numerous other partners.