Algerian musical instruments

thumb|260px|Musician playing the zurna.

The bendir (, ; : , ) is a wooden-framed frame drum of North Africa and Southwest Asia.

thumb|Use of Qraqeb in a wedding in the city of Salé, Morocco - November 2025 Qraqeb or garagab (), in English often transliterated as krakeb, are a large iron castanet-like musical instrument primarily used as the rhythmic aspect of Gnawa music. Gnawa today is part of the North African culture and is inherent in the Maghrebi soundscape. The word qraqeb is a plural form (with the singular being qarqab), with an unclear etymology, as the word does not occur in Standard Arabic with this meaning.

The sintir (), also known as the guembri (), gimbri, hejhouj in Hausa language, is a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people of Morocco. It is approximately the size of a guitar, with a body carved from a log and covered on the playing side with camel skin. The camel skin has the same acoustic function as the membrane on a banjo. The neck is a simple stick with one short and two long goat strings that produce a percussive sound similar to a pizzicato cello, pedal harp, or double bass.

The kwitra (also quwaytara, kouitra and quitra; in Arabic: الكوترة (a-kwitra)) is an Algerian stringed instrument, sometimes referred to as the Algerian lute. The instrument is tied to Andalusian musical traditions of Moorish people who were pushed out of the Iberian peninsula in the 15th century. That tradition has shrunk further; where the kwitra was once seen in Algeria, today it is mainly an Algerian instrument.

Algerian stringed instrument