Mtyangala
The mtyangala is a mouth bow that is played by the Tumbuka in northern Malawi and by the ethnic groups on the eastern shore of Lake Malawi , which is part of Tanzania . The single-string music bow reinforced with the mouth is used exclusively by women for entertainment. In southern Malawi the women of the Chewa play the same mouth arch that is called nkangala there . The tones that can be produced with the mouth arch have influenced the tone system of traditional music in Malawi.
Design and style of play
The most popular type of musical bow is curved in the shape of a hunting bow. Mtyangala and nkangala represent a special shape, as they are almost straight and more like a stick zither . The string carrier is made from a plant pipe about 70 centimeters long, with a string stretched between the ends of the pipe. In the nkangala , the sedge Phragmites mauritanus, Kunth ( Chichewa bango ) is used, whose yellowish tube with knots is otherwise used to make fences and mats. The string is firmly connected at one end, at the other end it is wound around the bow rod so that the tension can be adjusted. There is no one-string tuning loop.
The player puts one end of the instrument in her mouth, holding the outer end at an angle with the middle finger of her left hand. By pressing the string down at one point on the bow stick with her finger, she determines the pitch and creates two fundamental tones a whole tone apart . The string is not struck, but plucked with a small opening pick between the thumb and index finger of the right hand in an up and down motion. The pick is made from the rib of a palm leaf or the solid outer layer of a sugar cane.
By deliberately deforming the oral cavity, individual overtones can be emphasized above the fundamental tones. Above the lower fundamental tone it is possible to selectively amplify up to the third, fourth or fifth overtone, above the higher one up to the third and fourth overtone. This results in a tone scale in anhemitonic pentatonic scale , as is typical for traditional music around the entire Lake Malawi. The resulting tone pattern is based on the sequence of fourths with occasional major thirds .
The Malawian mouth arches produce a low sound, which is why they are not suitable for music at gatherings, they are played solo by unmarried girls and women for entertainment, usually when they are alone and not heard by others. The women express their feelings of loneliness when the men are traveling.
origin
The Tumbuka lived in a sparsely populated region in the west of northern Lake Malawi until the mid-19th century. Like the neighboring and culturally related Wapangwa, Wakisi and Wandendeule on the eastern side of the lake, they were affected by the immigration of the Nguni from South Africa from the 1850s . The Nguni made the local population in the north of Malawi and various Chewa groups in the south their subjects and also assumed the leading role culturally. In the form of mtyangala and known in Malawi system of tonal music probably came with the immigrants from South Africa, where the similar, by the Tsonga played mouthbow mqangala is covered with a nylon string that is plucked with the fingers. The string of the mqangala mouth bow is pressed with the finger on the bow stick in three places near the end and consequently produces three fundamental tones . The Zulu and Swazi people call this type of mouth bow umqangala . The onomatopoeic word umqangala , adopted by the Zulu from Khoisan languages , contains the palatal click q, which the language groups in Malawi are unable to pronounce and have therefore changed to mty- .
The 1.4 meter long ugubu (gubu, gubo) musical bow with a calabash resonator on a straight bamboo tube is also due to the influence of the Nguni . This instrument has almost disappeared in Malawi (the South African Zulu still play a calabash bow of the same name).
A differently played mouth bow of the Sena (Asena) in southern Malawi, nyakatangale , is used by men for dance accompaniment and, because of its calm tone, more often as a soloist for entertainment.
literature
- Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments. Volume 2. (New part 41. Department of Ethnic Music V.) Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin 1984, pp. 20, 22
- Gerhard Kubik : East Africa. Music history in pictures. Volume 1: Ethnic Music , Delivery 10. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1982, p. 172, ill. P. 173
- Gerhard Kubik: Theory of African Music. Volume 1. (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) Chicago University Press, Chicago 1994, p. 187
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mitchel Strumpf: Some Music Traditions of Malawi . In: African Music, Vol. 7, No. 4, 1999, pp. 110-121, here p. 111