Lecopes
Lekope ( Sesotho , plural makope ) refers to the Basotho of Lesotho and the Sotho in the Transvaal region of South Africa , to which the Pedi also belong, two different oral arches : One of the two oral arch types with an almost straight bow stick and an undivided string was in southern Africa widespread and corresponds among other things to the umqangala of the Zulu and the lugube of the Venda . This probably obsolete type of lekopes was only played by women.
In the other type, which is only played by men, the bow stick consists of a thick, straight central piece with thin, flexible bow ends inserted into it and a string divided by a tuning loop. This type is among the Basotho as setolotolo and the Zulu as isitontolo known.
Origin and Distribution
A mouth bow is the special construction of a musical bow in which the string vibrations are amplified and modulated not by a resonance body brought into contact with the string carrier - often a sliced calabash , but by the player's mouth. The string support of a musical bow consists of a more or less strongly curved and flexible rod, between the ends of which a string is stretched. In contrast to this, with a single-stringed rod zither (music rod ) or a similarly simple tubular zither, the string is stretched over a straight and almost rigid string carrier. In order to keep the string at a parallel distance from the string carrier, in such a zither it usually runs over bridges (pieces of wood) pushed under at both ends. The almost straight lecope of the first type differs from a rod zither only in that it does not have bridges.
In the second lekope type, the thickened middle part, like the tube of a tubular zither, causes a certain amplification of the resonance, which is otherwise achieved to a much greater extent by the calabash of a musical bow connected to the string carrier. Like Henry Balfour (1899) before, Percival Kirby (1934) advocates the theory of the development of the musical bow from a hunting bow to a bow that was used for hunting and making music, to an independent musical instrument, and sees the thickened middle section of the lekope as an intermediate stage on the way from the mouth bow to a musical bow reinforced with a calabash. Both mouth arches are thus organologically at the transition to other types of instruments.
The tonal possibilities of the different types of musical bows are always more complex than the relatively similar forms suggest, which is why Percival Kirby does not classify them exclusively according to the details of the construction, as in the Hornbostel-Sachs system , but rather on the top level according to the sound result. For this he was sharply criticized by Curt Sachs . Kirby divides the native stringed instruments in South Africa into three groups: in group 1 the overtones sound together as a chord , in group 2 the overtones are isolated to form the melody and in group 3 the overtones in harmony with the fundamental result in a simple form of polyphony .
The first group includes, on the one hand, calabash musical bows with an undivided string, including the segwana of the Batswana , the dende or tshitendje of the Tsonga , the ligubu of the Swazi , the ugubu of the Zulu and the uhadi of the Xhosa . On the other hand, this includes calabash musical bows with a vocal loop , such as the dende or tshikala of the Venda , the sekgapa ("calabash") of the Pedi and the umakhweyana of the Swazi and Zulu. In addition to some musical bows such as the gora , whose string is blown, the second group includes the semi-tubular zithers tshidzholo ( tsijolo ) of the Venda, segankuru and sekgobogobo of the Pedi.
Kirby places the two lekope types in the third category, which consists of four subgroups. The first subgroup contains mouth bows with an almost straight string support made of a plant tube , to which, in addition to the first lekope played by women, the lugube in the Venda, the umqangala in the Zulu and Swazi, the mtyangala in the Tumbuka in Malawi, the nkangala in the Chewa in Malawi and the inkinge belonging to the Xhosa.
The other lekate -type of men belongs to the second subgroup, in which the arch consists of a single solid rod that has been thinned out at both ends or of a thick central part with thin rods inserted from both sides. The split string is reinforced with the mouth. Percival Kirby describes this subgroup with a two-part string as a further development of the undivided mouth arch. In the instrumental work of the Jesuit priest and naturalist Filippo Bonanni from 1723, a musical bow with a tuning loop is shown. A resonator can neither be seen in the illustration nor is it mentioned in the text. The playing position shown is atypical for a musical bow with and without a resonator.
The Damara reportedly from the 19th century in Namibia shall, her bow used for hunting have temporarily equipped for making music with a vocal loop. They held the bow stick horizontally against their mouth while playing and they struck the string with a thin stick. This is how the British naturalist Francis Galton , who visited Damaraland in 1851, describes the Damara string instrument that was used for rhythmic vocal accompaniment and at that time the only one. His travel companion, the Swedish explorer Karl Johan Andersson , on the other hand, writes that the Damara player creates “a kind of wild melody” with the mouth arch and that the instrument is used to imitate the running noises of various animals. The Damara’s thin, slightly curved hunting bow was called outa like the Herero , even when it was used as a musical instrument. A 90 to 120 centimeter long branch from Ziziphus mucronata ( Otjiherero omukara ) was used as the bow stick of the outa (more precisely outa otjihumba ) . Leonhard Schultze saw the same mouth arch with string division around 1904 among the Basarwa in the Kalahari of Botswana .
The "improved" mouth bow of lekope- or setolotolo- type (English braced thick-handled bow ) with in the middle a thickened sheet bar and two divided string is at the Venda tshigwana ( tshivhana ), on Tsonga sekgapa , on Swazi isitontolo , on Kwebo kedondolo , with the Lobedu kashane (both North Sotho speakers), with the Zulu isitontolo or isiqomqomana , with the Tsopi penda and linguistically connected chipendani ( tshipendani ) with the Karanga in Zimbabwe who speak a Shona dialect. Such a mouth bow, but without a tuning loop, is subtitled by Bernhard Ankermann (1901) in an illustration with "Music bow of the Kaffirs ". Whether these mouth arches have a common origin or whether they developed independently cannot be deduced from their distribution. A design with a very short thickened middle section, in which the tuning loop is not attached to the middle section, but to the thin bow stick next to it - chipendani of the Karanga and isitontolo of the Tsonga, seems to have come from the north to South Africa.
The third subgroup consists of strongly curved mouth arches without string division, the string carrier of which is grooved in the middle and which is rubbed with a rubbing rod to which a rattle is attached. These Schrapbögen or grater arches belonging xizambi of Tsonga and nxonxoro the !Kung . The fourth subgroup is a variant of the second, but with an undivided string and a thick straight plant tube into which a thin, curved rod is inserted on only one side. Usually the string is bowed with a stick. Examples of this group are the two-part form of umrhubhe of the Zulu and Xhosa, which is no longer in use today , the umqunge of the Mpondo in the Eastern Cape Province and the utiyane of the Swazi.
Design and style of play
Lecopes with one-piece, straight string carrier
The lekope belonging to the first subgroup in the Transvaal region, which includes four provinces in the north-east of the Republic of South Africa, is made from a section of reed that is five internodes long. The preferred material is a bamboo tube about two inches long and one to two centimeters in diameter. In rare cases, if the bar is completely straight, a section of twig is placed under the string at one end to bring it a minimal distance from the string support. The lekope traditionally consists of an animal tendon (the lugube made of plant fiber or animal tendon ) is reinforced on one side by a knot, which is then clamped into a crack at the tip of the rod and, unlike the other mouth arches of this group, not directly on the other Rod end, but firmly wound at some distance from the rod end. The winding, which is pulled through several times under the string, provides a little distance from the rod like a very low saddle . The string is plucked with a plectrum (from a type of dog tooth grass , Sesotho mohloa ). With the Sotho and most other ethnic groups, this type of mouth bow was played exclusively by women and girls. Today, older women may still use the lekop for their own entertainment.
As with the umqangala of the Zulu, the lugube of the Venda and the lengope of the Batswana, the (right-handed) player holds the bow stick on the left side and touches its upper end with her lips - but not with her teeth. The string points outwards. With the index finger of her left hand she fixes the lower end of the rod with the palm of the hand pointing upwards. With the remaining fingers of the left hand, the player shortens the string and produces two or three more fundamental tones above the fundamental tone of the open string. For the resulting sound, it is not so much the gripped fundamental tones that are decisive , but above all the second, third and fourth overtones isolated by changing the oral cavity .
The musical instruments of the Pedi women earlier mainly used were different types of drums, especially the wood boiler drum with handle Moropa (plural Meropa ), rattles , Jew's harps and lekope . The lekope was used by women in the evenings as a solo instrument or to accompany a song with or without words. At the end of the 1950s, the straight oral arch telescope had become rare and was practically no longer used. Instead, the young women played a metal jaw harp , which could be bought cheaply in simple shops and to which they named lekope and, in the Sekhukhune district, setolotolo .
Lecope with a three-part, curved string carrier
In the case of the split-string lekop , which is called setolotolo in Lesotho , the middle thick arched stick consists of a 20 to 25 centimeter long branch of a lilac or other shrub with a similarly soft wood, the diameter of 3 to 4 centimeters. The piece of wood is debarked, tapered slightly towards the middle and the soft pith inside is drilled 5 to 7 centimeters deep from both sides. Two strongly curved, thin branches with a maximum diameter of one centimeter and pointed ends are inserted into the drill holes of the thick middle section on both sides. Notches are cut at the ends of the branches to tie a wire string. In order to tighten the string, the fastening, as is usual with musical bows, can be released at one end. The tuning loop, which consists of a string, directs the string a few centimeters towards the middle section. In a specimen described by Percival Kirby (1934), the middle part was made from the wood of the cedar tree ( syringa ) and the curved end pieces from a species of willow ( morethloa ). Before being bent, they were dried over the fire. The approximately 75 centimeter long brass string was connected to a tuning loop made of cotton.
While playing, the musician holds the bow roughly horizontally with his left hand on the middle section and presses its right end against his lips. He plucks the string that is pointing away from the body up and down on the left half with the index finger of his left hand, while he plucks the right half of the string in both directions with a pick (made from a mandrel). The string is tuned in three steps. First it is tied with the correct tension, then the fine adjustment is made with the folded tuning loop and finally the tuning loop is moved along the string so that the desired interval results. In a common tuning, both string tones are a fifth apart. Other intervals, such as a major third , are possible and are set according to the melody to be played. The mouth can be used to selectively amplify overtones from both halves of the string. Of the eight to ten overtones that can be represented with each half of the string, the musician only uses part of the melody in a piece of music.
The traditional musical instruments of the Pedi men include an ensemble of reed flutes, dinaka , which they apparently adopted from the panpipes nyanga of the Venda, the ritual drum dikomana , the natural horn phalaphala and the lekope . Like the slightly differently produced tshigwana of the Venda, the lekop is only played by initiated young and old men. The men used to sit around a fire in their kraal at night and make music. Mouthbows are usually played individually. Percival Kirby (1934), however, heard two Pedi musicians playing makopes tuned to the same pitch together. Yvonne Huskisson (1958) mentions a very unusual ensemble of six men who played makopes melodiously tuned to the same pitch . In general, the traditional music of the Pedi women is more rhythmic and the music of the men is more melodic.
If the musician used to want to send out a sign of love, loyalty, dislike or some other emotional mood with his oral bow play, a magical healer could prepare the bow with certain miracle drugs to reinforce this message. As a musical oath of love it was considered beneficial to rub the bow with the white blossom of a tree and the honey of young bees together with the flesh of a cap dove and a mole. The effectiveness of such substances is based on the idea of analogy magic and in this case on the consideration that the special flower blooms first in spring, the mole is blind (like lovers), the pigeons fly in pairs, and the honey tastes sweet. If it was about hatred or enmity against the person meant by the music, fat from the honey badger (considered brave), the eagle (always considered powerful), a mamba (highly toxic) and young bees from the beehive were used to produce the magical substance (because they sting) used.
One story at least seems to confirm the targeted use of the lekope in love affairs. According to this, a young man had paid the requested bride price ( lobala ) in the form of cattle to his future father-in-law, regardless of which the old father refused to give his daughter into the marriage. The young man and a friend went to his father's house in the evening and both played music, alternately when they were tired, on the lekop until the early morning . After a few nights, the father finally consented to the marriage. Therefore, in the past, a girl was careful to find a groom who could play lekoping .
literature
- Yvonne Huskisson: The Social and Ceremonial Music of the Pedi . (Dissertation) University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 1958
- Percival R. Kirby : The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa. (1934) 2nd edition: Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1965
Web links
- Pedi playing upon the lecope. Percival Kirby Musical Instruments Collection, University of Cape Town (illustration of amen's lekope with a three-part string carrier)
Individual evidence
- ^ Henry Balfour: The Natural History of the Musical Bow. A Chapter in the Developmental History of Stringed Instruments of Music. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1899
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 227f
- ^ Curt Sachs : Review: The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa by Percival R. Kirby. In: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute , Volume 9, No. 1, January 1936, p. 132
- ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 196
- ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 197
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 204-215
- ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 220
- ^ Filippo Bonanni : Gabinetto armonico pieno d'instrumenti sonori. Placho, Rome 1723, p. 175; Text archive - Internet Archive
- ^ Francis Galton : Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa being an Account of a Visit to Damaraland in 1851. (PDF) 4th edition. Ward, Lock and Co., London 1891, p. 117
- ^ Karl Johan Andersson : Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries During Four Years Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa. Harper & Brothers, New York 1861, p. 227; Text archive - Internet Archive
- ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 227
- ^ Leonhard Schultze : From Namaland and Kalahari. Report to the Kgl. Preuss. Academy of Sciences in Berlin on a research trip to western and central South Africa, carried out in the years 1903–1905. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1907; Text archive - Internet Archive
- ↑ Chipendani. Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection
- ^ Thomas F. Johnston: Tsonga Musical Performance in Cultural Perspective (South Africa) . In: Anthropos , Volume 70, No. 5./6, 1975, pp. 761-799, here p. 768
- ^ Bernhard Ankermann : The African musical instruments . (Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig) Haack, Berlin 1901, p. 3 ( archive.org )
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 228; Plate 64
- ^ Yvonne Huskisson, 1958, p. 21
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 225; Plate 62, 4
- ↑ Laurie Levine: The Drum Cafe's Traditional Music of South Africa. Jacana Media, Johannesburg 2005, p. 123
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 222-224
- ^ Yvonne Huskisson, 1958, pp. 22, 25
- ^ Yvonne Huskisson, 1958, p. 56
- ^ Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments . Volume 2. (New episode 41. Department of Ethnic Music V.) Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin 1984, p. 18
- ^ Yvonne Huskisson, 1958, p. 26
- ^ Yvonne Huskisson, 1958, p. 57, plate 22
- ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 104
- ↑ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, pp. 232f