The Kalimba:A Brief Historyof an AncientInstrumentfrom AfricaMark Holdaway, PhDJanuary 2008

Most people know that loud drum-ming is central to African music.

But not so many people knowabout the delicate sounds ofthe African lamellophones.

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"lamella" = Latin for "plate""phone" = Greek for "sound"

In Africa, each culturalgroup has their ownname for the instrument.The mbira is one of themost advanced types oftraditional lamellophone.

It is played inside a gourd toamplify the instrument’ssound and to add a buzz.

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There are over 100 kinds of tradi-tional African lamellophones, eachwith its own tuning, note layout,and name. And until about 50 yearsago, almost nobody outside of Af-rica had ever built or played one. PLAY

In America, we now call theseinstruments thumb pianos orkalimbas - they are usuallytuned to the western “Do-Re-Mi” scale, but their roots areuniquely African.PLAY

The kalimba is about 1300 or 3000 yearsold, depending on what you call a kalimba.

The kalimba is believed to have been independently in-vented in two different places and times in Africa.

Bamboo: 1000 BC Metal: 700 AD

Studies of xylophone and kalimba music indicate that thekalimba was likely invented as a portable xylophone.

From David Livingston, before 1865

Xylophones were played by 2 people on opposite sideswith interlocking patterns. On the kalimba, one personcould perform those interlocking patterns.

The Karimba has atuning and note layoutthat could be 500 yearsold.

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How do we know how old these are?

The first European documentation of the kalimbawas around 1570, by Portuguese explorers. Butthe metal-tined kalimbas had already spreadacross Africa by then. So the first kalimba-likeinstruments were made in Africa long beforethen.

Archeologists have found mbira tines at sitesthought to date to over 1000 years ago.

A wood carving of akalimba player dancing,Mozambique, 1723.

African slaves in Brazilwere documented to havehad kalimbas in the late1700’s, but the instrumenthad disappeared in SouthAmerica by about 1900.

David Livingstone docu-mented the Sansa and Mbirabefore 1865.

Carl Mauch documented thetuning and note layout of theShona Mbira in 1872.

When AndrewTracey documentedthe Mbira tuning 90years later, the in-strument hadevolved, but wasconsistent.

By the late 1890’s severalkalimbas had found their wayinto European museums, butthe museum pieces were notwell studied or appreciateduntil Gerhard Kubik’s workin 1998.

The understanding thatkalimbas were real musicalinstruments dawned slowlyon people in the 20th century.

An Englishman named Hugh Tracey fell in love withmbira music in Rhodesia and started recording it in 1929.Major grant funding permitted him to spend most of 1952and 1957 recording across Africa.

Hugh Tracey also learned to play the dif-ferent kinds of kalimbas and mbiras heencountered, and he documented theirtunings and note layouts.

In 1954, Hugh Tracey founded the International Li-brary of African Music to archive the thousands ofhours of recordings he had taken. Shortly after, hefounded African Musical Instruments (AMI) andstarted making high quality kalimbas for export to Eu-rope and America. Within a few years, dozens of ka-limba makers sprung up around the world.

Dr Hugh Tracey’s work documents over ahundred different kinds of kalimba. Basi-cally, each group of people who encounteredthe kalimba changed the instrument, its tun-ing, and its uses to fit their culture.

One of those instruments was the mbira,which has a very important cultural use to theShona people of Zimbabwe.

The Shona people believethat God gave the mbirato humans, and that thembira’s sound attracts thespirits of our ancestors.

Most traditional religions in Africainvolved some form of ancesterworship. The Shona felt they hadto be on good terms with their an-cestors’ spirits, or the world wouldbe in danger of disaster.

For those hours, thespirit would inhabit thebody of an appointedspiritual medium.

In the bira ceremony, mbiraplayers play the favoritesongs of a deceased personto entice their spirit to re-turn for a few hours to visitwith family and friends.

Hugh Tracey Ka-limba, 1960.

A hollow-body kalimba, 1898.

Just as African peoples adapted the kalimba to theirown music, so did Hugh Tracey. He started buildinghis own kalimbas in the late 1950s, using the western“Do Re Mi” scale.

In the 1960s, the kalimba burst forthonto the world stage when HughTracey’s sons Andrew and Paul wrotea musical review called Wait aMinim which went to Broadway andplayed around the world for 7 years.

Basically, white people introducedAfrican music to people around theworld because the people somehowweren’t ready to hear black Africansplaying their own music.

In fact, there is somethingwrong with this history of thekalimba. These instrumentswere created from the imagina-tion and soul of black Africans,but almost everything we knowabout the kalimba comes to usfrom white people who werefascinated by the instrument.

Malcolm X, a prominentblack leader in the1960s, drove home thepoint that black Ameri-cans didn’t know theirown heritage. Theydidn’t even know theirown ancestral name, sohe changed his lastname to X, representinghis unknown and lostcultural heritage.

In the 1970s, African Americans re-discovered the kalimba and used itto reconnect with an African culturalheritage that had been robbed fromthem when they had been forciblytaken from Africa in the slave tradecenturies earlier.

Maurice White played kalimba withhis band Earth, Wind and Fire.

Meanwhile, in Africa, mbira artists adapted their musicto the modern times, sometimes adding electric guitarsand modern drums to the traditional songs.

Even though the kalimbais an ancient instrumentwith roots in Africa, it isalive and well, movingout into the future withmodern innovations.

Even though it was uniquely African, the kalimba isbecoming part of our world wide human heritage.

The story of the kalimba is largely un-known. We can see the shape of itshistory, but we do not know the nameof this kalimba player, we do notknow the names of the people whomade many innovations in designover many centuries. We do not knowthe names of the people who inventedthe different tunings or wrote thesongs. But their collective wisdom isplaced in our hands every time wepick up a thumb piano and play.

In addition tothousands ofhours of soundrecordings, Dr.Hugh Traceyalso left us abook of storiesthat he collectedon his travelsacross Africa.

You can learn more about the kalimba at:

http://www.KalimbaMagic.com

http://www.wikipedia.com

African Lamellophones by Gerhardt Kubrick

The Soul of Mbira by Paul F. Berliner