Student Karimba (front and center in the photo). Modern kalimbas are very different from their antecedents – having been redesigned to play music that is easy for western ears to understand and appreciate.Īndrew Tracey argues convincingly in his 1972 article “The Original African Mbira?” that the first or most basic kalimba is the 8-Note “kalimba core”, which we now sell as the Why is this instrument so odd? The African Karimba co-evolved with centuries of African music – it is designed to play African music, and African music was shaped by this instrument, and it is the forebear of all traditional kalimbas. The African-Tuned Karimba shows a very idiosyncratic tuning, with some alternating sections, some scale-like sections, a second row of shorter tines bent upward so you can play them even though they lay between longer, lower tines, and several pairs of duplicate notes. A “V” shape indicates a simple bi-directional tuning such as the Hugh Tracey Alto kalimba. If the metal properties of the tines are uniform (as modern spring steel is likely to be) you can infer the tuning by looking at the length of the tines. On most kalimbas, the tips of the tines will trace out a simple “V” shape. The second most asked question: “How do you remove the buzzers?” Tilt the karimba so the buzzers are down against the bridge, gently lift the tine off the bridge, and slide the buzzer past the bridge and off the tine. Why? Because the shells would eventually break, while metal objects last the lifetime of the instrument. More recently traditional instrument makers shifted to using bottle caps and other metal objects. Long ago, the buzzers were made of land snail or cowrie shells. The sound of the buzzers represents the voices of the ancestors, which chime in whenever the living things act on earth.” Michael Williams explains it via a story he heard: “The tines represent all the living things. The most-asked question about the African-tuned Karimba: “Why do they have those buzzers?” Andrew Tracey stated that essentially every traditional African thumb piano had buzzers on them. I like to go back and forth between playing with two thumbs, and then playing with thumbs and right index finger. However, playing with the index finger gives a more refined and more complex feeling to the music. You can accomplish part of what it does through playing the upper row tine with the right thumb and sliding off to play the lower row tine next to it. Often, in the heat of the moment, players dispense with the right index finger. The Karimba playing technique is similar to the mbira dzavadzimu technique – both use the left thumb plus the right thumb and index finger, but on the Karimba, the right index finger usually goes over the tines and plays down, while on mbira it goes under the tines and strokes upward. Click on one of the gray circles below the image to go to the next one. Song” book.Ĭhiwoniso played a 15-note karimba which she simply called “mbira” without apology.Įach of these karimba images tells part of the ancient and evolving story of the African-Tuned Karimba, increasingly known as the mbira nyunga nyunga. Do you dare to enter through this door?Ī Hugh Tracey Box Karimba, playing Double “Shumba Panzira” from the “30 Trad. Now, this truly ancient instrument, its inherent musical logic, and a large repertoire of traditional African songs are open to you on the Hugh Tracey african Tuned Karimba. Yet, African Musical Instruments did not start to produce and sell the African-tuned Karimba until after Hugh Tracey had passed. In 1972, Andrew Tracey argued that this instrument was very close to the “original mbira” tuning from some 1300 years ago. Hugh had been searching for a unifying theory of kalimba tunings, and while it eluded him, he was still alive when his son Andrew Tracey opened that door using the Karimba as the key. Hugh Tracey was aware of the Karimba, one of over a hundred different varieties of traditional African thumb pianos he encountered on his expeditions across Africa. Do you want to play traditional African music? The African-tuned karimba has a wide and deep repertoire of music from across the vast Zambezi Valley, and is thought to be closely related to the original mbira tuning from 1300 years ago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |