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The system of the mbira

- Tracey, Andrew

  • Authors: Tracey, Andrew
  • Date: 2015
  • Language: English
  • Type: article , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59720 , vital:27642 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/amj.v10i1.1229
  • Description: The existence of a harmonically-based system of the mbira in Africa should be of great interest in itself, in comparison with modern African musical preferences, and for Afro-American music studies, where the blues sequence is another highly generative harmonic system. It demonstrates a unique method of getting harmonically “from here to there”, and offers an almost endless potential for Shona composers. In fact, the special tinge, the appeal, of modern Shona popular, church and school music comes in large part from the principles of the system which fortunately persist even when composers are working in Western harmony.This is a re-edited and updated version of the paper presented at the 7th Symposium on Ethnomusicology (Venda University) in 1988, published by ILAM in “Papers presented at the 7th and 8th Symposiums in Ethnomusicology” (1989). It is reproduced here because of the worldwide interest which has developed in mbira and its system in recent decades.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Predicted mbira found

- Tracey, Andrew

  • Authors: Tracey, Andrew
  • Date: 2013
  • Language: English
  • Type: article , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59732 , vital:27643 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i3.1908
  • Description: This article is written as a follow-up to my article “The original African mbira?” (1972). I can report that an instrument which I predicted to have existed in that article actually did/does exist! In the original article I compared the tuning layouts of two related present-day members of the mbira family, hera, also called matepe, (found in northern Zimbabwe and northeast Zimbabwe into Mozambique) and nyonganyonga (found in central Mozambique, from Mutare, Zimbabwe to Beira, Mozambique and also into southern Malawi).
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  • Date Issued: 2013

Transcribing the Venda tshikona reedpipe dance

- Tracey, Andrew, Gumboreshumba, Laina

  • Authors: Tracey, Andrew , Gumboreshumba, Laina
  • Date: 2013
  • Language: English
  • Type: article , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59744 , vital:27644 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i3.1909
  • Description: Starting with the end result, the above transcription is the conclusion I came to after sitting with Laina Gumboreshumba for many hours, watching the videos she made during her recent doctoral research on the tshikona reedpipe dance of the Venda of Limpopo Province in the extreme north of South Africa. The transcription shown in Figure 2 is a skeleton version of the full pipe sound that contains all the information needed to grasp the structure of the sound and teach it or play it. There are always seven different pipes. A full tshikona group has far more than the seven pipes (nanga) shown, because all seven pipe numbers are doubled in every octave present in a group, so there may be up to four or more Pipe 1s, Pipe 2s, etc, of different sizes. All the Pipe 1s play the same pattern together, all the Pipe 2s etc. There are usually four octaves in all, with an incomplete octave of a few higher pitched pipes at the top (phalana). A popular size for a group according to group leaders (malogwane) is twenty eight pipes, which may include some pitch duplicates. A festive performance can number well over one hundred players. The music is heptatonic as you can see from the transcription, and hear for yourself from CD track 1 accompanying this issue of African Music. A chart showing the tuning is included as Figure 1 1 at the end of this article. This article does not address the pipe names; they are simply numbered Pipes 1 to 7, in the order of entry in Mr Netshivhale’s groups. The pipes are end-blown, closed tubes made of a special bamboo, or increasingly today of electrical or other tubing.
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  • Date Issued: 2013

Chaminuka

- Tracey, Andrew, Dargie, Dave

  • Authors: Tracey, Andrew , Dargie, Dave
  • Date: 1988
  • Subjects: Folk music , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Namibia Gobabis f-sx
  • Language: Chishona
  • Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/308242 , vital:58896 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa , Dave Dargie Field Tapes, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa , DD116-48
  • Description: Traditional Shona song accompanied by the mbira.
  • Full Text: false
  • Date Issued: 1988

Hom!awab go !Khub Kristuba

- Tracey, Andrew, Composer Not Specified, Dargie, Dave

New World

- Mobita, Stubborn, Tracey, Andrew, Dargie, Dave

Raising of Lazarus

- Tracey, Andrew, Dargie, Dave

  • Authors: Tracey, Andrew , Dargie, Dave
  • Date: 1988
  • Subjects: Folk music , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Namibia Gobabis f-sx
  • Language: Mbukushu
  • Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/308314 , vital:58904 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa , Dave Dargie Field Tapes, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa , DD116-49
  • Description: Church song accompanied by the mbira.
  • Full Text: false
  • Date Issued: 1988

Title Not Specified

- Tracey, Andrew, Mulonga, Robert, Mixed Congregation Choir, Composer Not Specified, Dargie, Dave

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