Like the jew’s harp and mechanical music box, the African mbira or thumb piano is a lamellaphone, in which the sound is produced by plucking metal tongues or plates. A mbira has between 22 and 52 thin metal tongues, arranged in two or three layers on a hardwood soundboard. The longest tongues are placed in the middle of ...
The celesta is used extensively in Bartók’s music, in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony and in ‘Mercury’ from The Planets (1914–16) by Gustav Holst (1874–1934). Introduction | Percussion Instruments Instruments | Mbira | Percussion ...
and be heard. Their contribution to the growth of world music may never be truly understood. Back home, there are two permanent kings on the music scene; Thomas Mapfumo’s mbira (thumb piano) orchestras have been playing chimurenga protest songs since the days of the Rhodesian white-minority government and continued into the 1990s, turning their wrath on President Robert Mugabe. ...
used for self-accompaniment to sung poetry; the typical form has ostinato figures and interlocking polyphonic melodies. The lamellophone (mbira, sansa) is unique to Africa and the African diaspora; the mbira of southern Africa has a single or double keyboard of metal tongues (which are plucked), fastened to a board or box resonator and mounted in a dried calabash. Such melody ...
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