Mbira Dza Vadzimu

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A mbira dza vadzimu in the deze , the sound box
Mbira dza vadzimu without a resonator

Mbira dza vadzimu ( Shona ), also mbira dze midzimu , "Mbira of the ancestors", is a lamellophone that is played by the Shona in southern Africa in traditional African music . Lamellophones, with their tongues mounted on a board, belong to the group of plucked idiophones . The mbira dza vadzimu is a variant of the lamellophone type mbira , which is only used for ritual purposes and is widespread in Zimbabwe and neighboring areas.

Design

A mbira dza vadzimu differs from other mbiras in its design: it is larger, the 21 lamellas are wider and fragments of snail shells are traditionally attached to its front as rattles , which make a creaking sound. As early as the 1980s, however, instead of the shells of land snails, there were mainly crown caps on beer bottles in cities. A sketch of a mbira dza vadzimu made by the Africa explorer Karl Mauch from 1871 shows an instrument with twenty-seven lamellas, six more than those of the present day.

The ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey described the mbira dza vadzimu as possibly the oldest type of lamellophone among the Shona. He distinguished an early design, in which the bass tones are played by the right hand, from a later instrument, in which the bass tones are in the area of ​​the left hand, to today's forms. You only play with three fingers, with the two thumbs and the index finger of the right hand. The index finger plucks the six highest slats on the right side from bottom to top. The instrument is for sound reinforcement in a resonance kalebasse set, the deze is called.

The same lamellophone is called deza by the Venda after their word for the calabash and its full name is mbila deza or mbila dza madeza . It is the special instrument for religious songs of the Lemba , a subgroup of the Venda.

Style of play

The mbira dza vadzimu is used exclusively for ritual play in connection with ancestral cults, including Bira ceremonies . The between two and eight Mbira players can either stand in the role of getting into the necessary state of obsession with the actual medium through music , or they can combine both roles as musician and medium themselves. During the ceremony, the music serves to create a kind of connection between the spirits of the ancestors and the participants in the ritual. Individual members of the group can become obsessed during the course of the evening, culminating in the group elder's obsession with a significant ancestor. Black robes and a black headdress made of ostrich feathers are of symbolic importance ; occasionally the consumption of corn beer ( ndoro ) has a supportive effect .

The music is related to that of the Ngororombe flute ensembles . It develops from a harmonic sequence of two chords in fourths and fifths . The result is a melody cycle of mostly 48 elements. The beginning part is called in Shona kushaura ("begin, lead"). The melody played by the second mbira is called kutsinhira (“chorus sing, exchange”).

The individual pieces last 10 to 30 minutes and are not strictly composed, they begin and end spontaneously. Participants in the ritual participate casually by clapping their hands, singing or dancing. Call and Response , the model of a lead singer with a choir following, is missing in this music. Since the 1970s, the music, which was seldom performed in the decades before, experienced a revival as part of the national freedom struggle movement of Zimbabwe ( Chimurenga ).

literature

proof

  1. ^ Andrew Tracey: The Family of the Mbira. The Evidence of the Tuning Plans. In: Zambezia, Vol. 3 (2), 1974, pp. 1-10
  2. a b c d Robert Garfias: The role of dreams and ghost obsession in the Mbira Dza Vadzimu music of the Shona of Zimbabwe In: Erich Stockmann: Music cultures in Africa . Verlag Neue Musik, Berlin 1987, pp. 221–245
  3. ^ Andrew Tracey: Three Tunes for 'Mbira dza vadzimu' . In: African Music, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1963, pp. 23-26, here p. 23f
  4. a b Gerhard Kubik : Lamellophone. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in history and present , Sachteil 5, 1996, Sp. 886f
  5. Andrew Tracey: Deca. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 37f