Dende

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dende , also known as tshikala , is a musical bow with a calabash resonator and vocal loop from the Venda in South Africa . The dende, which is mostly played by boys, corresponds in its design to the xitende and nkoka of the Tsonga , the sekgapa of the Pedi and the umakweyana of the Swazi and Zulu .

Another calabash musical bow with an undivided string called dende is known among the Tsonga .

Origin and Distribution

Arco de Cafri , "Arch of the Kaffirs ". The copper engraving in Filippo Bonanni , Gabinetto armonico , 1723, shows a musical bow with a tuning loop, the string of which is struck with a rattle stick.

In the simplest form , musical bows are mouth bows in which the string is reinforced with the oral cavity to amplify the sound, otherwise the string support is connected to a resonance body for this purpose. Numerous variants can be distinguished in terms of design and sound generation. In any case, the tonal possibilities are much more diverse than the simple construction would suggest, which is why Percival Kirby (1934) classifies the South African musical bows according to the sound result. He divides the native string instruments into three groups. In the first group the overtones sound together as a chord , in the second group the overtones are isolated to form the melody and in the third group the overtones in harmony with the fundamental result in a simple form of polyphony . The first group includes calabash musical bows with an undivided string and a resonator attached to one end of the rod, including segwana for the Setswana , a musical bow also called dende or tshitendje for the Tsonga , ligubu for the Swazi, ugubu ( ugumbu ) for the Zulu and uhadi with the Xhosa . A second design of this group has a tuning loop that divides the string in the middle, to which the resonator is also attached. In addition to the dende of the Venda, these include the xitende ( chitende ) with the Tsonga, umakhweyana ( umakhweyane ) with the Zulu, sekgapa with the Balobedu and tshitendole with the Tsonga.

The second group of South African stringed instruments includes the musical bows khas of the Nama in Namibia and the gora , whose string is blown, as well as the trough zithers tshidzholo ( tsijolo ) with the Venda, segankuru and sekgobogobo with the Pedi. In the third group, Kirby counts four types of musical bows. These are assigned to simple mouth bows with an almost straight string support made of reed , including umqangala for the Zulu, mtyangala for the Tumbuka in Malawi, nkangala for the Chewa in Malawi and umquengele for the Zulu, as well as mouth bows with a thickened center or a composite bow stick below the isitontolo with the Zulu, xizambi with the Tsonga, umrhubhe with the Xhosa and lekope with the Sotho.

In the simplest mouth bow or calabash music bow without a tuning loop, the shape of which corresponds to a hunting bow, the empty string produces a fundamental tone , whereby further fundamental tones can be generated by shortening the string with the finger. The British archaeologist Henry Balfour (1899) postulated a developmental sequence from the pure hunting bow, through the same bow, which is optionally used for hunting and making music, to bow types specifically made for music, which is no longer considered to be so clear today. In this respect, the introduction of the tuning loop represents a development step. The tuning loop divides the string into two parts a little outside the center and transfers the string vibrations to the resonator attached to the bow stick at this point. Balfour refers to the instrumental work of the Jesuit priest and natural scientist Filippo Bonanni from 1723, in which a musical bow with a vocal loop is depicted and its function is described. Neither in the text nor in the illustration does a resonator appear, but on the baton that the musician is holding in his right hand, a rattle can be seen, as it is attached to the scraping rod of the oral arch xizambi and also on some other stringed instruments for a Background noise. The musician shown by Bonanni places the bow in his left hand vertically away from his body with one end on the floor, while he strikes the string facing him with his right hand. The bow position is completely different with a calabash music bow, which the player holds with the opening of the calabash more or less tightly against his upper body in order to modulate the sound, with the string positioned away from the body.

A calabash musical bow of the dende of the Venda type was not previously used by all ethnic groups in South Africa. It was unknown to the Xhosa, for example, and was apparently only recently adopted by the Swazi and Zulu.

Design and style of play

The dende's bow stick consists of a dry, firm twig, the bark of which has been removed. Its length averages 1.4 meters and varies between 0.6 and 2 meters. A twisted bundle of hair, gut, an animal skin strip or wire can generally be used for the string in musical bows; At the dende , the string has long been made of wire that the Venda used to get from the Lemba living in their vicinity . The tuning loop, which is tied a little off-center, pulls the string closer to the bow stick to the point where the calabash half-shell is attached. The string is struck with a thin wooden stick or plant pipe. The two tones of the open string above and below the vocal loop lying in Venda music sheet about a whole tone (200 cents ) and, for comparison at the xitende the Tsonga about one and a half whole tones (300 cents) apart. An exception was a Venda musician, who in 1985, when performing a beer song at the University of Cape Town, tuned the string halves of his musical bow to a fifth (700 cents) apart . In addition, a denda player shortens one of the two halves of the string with his finger by a semitone or whole tone, so that at least three basic tones are available for the formation of the melody.

The standing player holds the musical bow with his left hand on the calabash almost vertically with the calabash opening more or less close to his chest. The top half of the bow stick protrudes over his left shoulder. The resonance properties of the calabash, which are changed by the movement, ensure that certain overtones are emphasized. When moving quickly, there is also a certain wah-wah effect. In addition to musical bows, this type of sound modulation is also common for some other stringed instruments, such as the East African flat bar zither zeze , the Cameroonian mvet bridge harp , and in earlier times it was also used for some Asian bar zithers.

The Dende is today - now rare - like many other music sheets. It was traditionally played by boys to accompany their songs and sometimes also as a soloist. The sekgapa of the neighboring Pedi was only played by unmarried men and by widowers, while the great tshitendole of the Chopi in Mozambique was part of the men's instruments.

The tshitendje or Dende said music sheet of Tsonga with undivided string corresponds to the segwana the Batswana up on the string. In the segwana this consists of the twisted tendon of an ox and in the dende it consists of a twisted palm leaf fiber . The calabash is tied down just before one end of the slightly curved bow stick. Dende is the name of the same musical bow among the Bakalanga in western Zimbabwe and northeastern Botswana . The Balakanga used to use the dende next to the muhubhe mouth arch , which was stimulated with a grater and which was traditionally played by cattle herders. Both were also played to accompany group chants.

literature

  • Percival R. Kirby : The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa. (1934) 2nd edition. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1965
  • Andrew Tracey: Dende . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Volume 2. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 32

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 196
  2. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 197
  3. ↑ Andrew Tracey: Chitende . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Volume 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 523
  4. ↑ David K. Rycroft: Umakhweyana . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 5, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 140
  5. ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 205f
  6. ^ Percival R. Kirby: The Gora and its Bantu Sucessors: A Study in South African Native Music. Bantu Studies , Vol. 5, No. 1, 1931, pp. 89-109
  7. ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 220-239
  8. ^ Henry Balfour: The Natural History of the Musical Bow. A Chapter in the Developmental History of Stringed Instruments of Music. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1899
  9. ^ Filippo Bonanni : Gabinetto armonico pieno d'instrumenti sonori. Placho, Rome 1723, p. 175 and plate 145
  10. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 205
  11. ↑ Andrew Tracey, 2014, p. 32
  12. ↑ Tandile Mandela: The Revival and Revitalization of Musical Bow Practice in South Africa . (Master's thesis) University of Cape Town, 2005, p. 46
  13. ^ John Blacking: Musicians in Venda. In: The World of Music, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1979, pp. 18–38, here p. 20: Photograph of a musician from 1956
  14. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 207
  15. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 200
  16. ↑ Otukile Sindiso Phibion: “Bakalanga” Traditional Music Instruments (Zwilidzo zwa ntolo two Bakalanga) . In: Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 38, 2006, pp. 74-88, here p. 85