The balafon or bala Balani is a percussion instrument idiophone native to West Africa. It is a kind of xylophone, either pentatonic or heptatonic. Malinke, "balafon" comes from the words bala (the instrument) and his (ring). The first balafon was born in the Kingdom of Sosso, between Guinea and Mali. This balafon still exists and is called Sosso Bala. It may be noted that two types of xylophones tend to "democratize" in West Africa: • Bala is the balafon to large gourds, and large blades (regions Kolokani and Bobo Dioulasso among others), the bass. • Balani (or is short), is the balafon small gourds, narrow strips (3-4 cm) It usually has 21 blades. Today, the agreement most often encountered is diatonic. traditionally, the agreement would be closer to a very different équiheptatonique agreement, the Western musical system. It consists of a light structure of wood tied with strips of leather, on which the blades are arranged in hardwoods growing in size and height (plus the strips are short, the sound is more acute) and pairs of small gourds are placed below forming sounding.