Home / Bouyon guides / Bouyon instruments

The instruments of bouyon: from the traditional drum to the keyboard

The bouyon sound comes from a meeting: the traditional instruments of Dominica, inherited from jing ping and the Creole dances, plugged into the machines of the 1980s, keyboards, synthesizers and drum machines.

The traditional instruments

The lapo kabwit, the goat-skin drum of chanté mas and carnival. The bele drum, at the heart of the dance of the same name. The chakchak, Creole maracas. The syak or gwaj, the scraper. The accordion, the voice of jing ping, with the bamboo flute and the boom-boom. These sounds are the soul of bouyon, and good producers still sample them.

The machines

WCK built bouyon on technology: keyboards up front, synthetic rhythmic patterns, electronic basses. Today, producers work on software, but they are looking for the same result: reproducing the pressure of a carnival band with machines. To go further, see the bouyon drum kit page.

Read next