Transcript: Music of Zimbabwe
>> Howard Spring: Hi, Moyo, thanks for doing this. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself before we get going?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Hi, Ryan. Hi, Howard. My name is Moyo. I am from Zimbabwe. And I’m currently reside in Toronto. And I am a gwenya mbira. What that means is master mbira player. I play this music that is inspired by this instrument. And I also teach mbira here in Canada, but also in the US. I have mbira centre in Zimbabwe, so where people can actually go and learn mbira locally. So people — it’s a global centre. So people from around the world come there to learn mbira and mbira culture.
>> Howard Spring: OK. Can you show us what your hands are doing when you’re playing?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: All right. I’m just going to angle myself a little bit. OK. So basically, the mbira has three voices, right? And the right-hand side of the mbira is the high voice. And I play that side using my index finger and my thumb. And then the left-hand side, I only play with my thumb. Both thumbs play down, the keys down like this. Whereas the index finger play from the bottom. So the Moya Moya song that I was playing would go like this.
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Sometimes on the right-hand side, I play chords. I play two keys together. But on the left side, because I’m using one thumb, I only play one key. Sometimes, I play the three together.
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And that thickens the sound.
>> Howard Spring: So what — how did the — how does the melody actually get played?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: How does the melody get played?
>> Howard Spring: An odd question, I know. It’s seems like your fingers are — they’re sort of putting the melody together between them, if you know what I mean. Or is it you play the melody and there’s an accompaniment? Is that the way it works?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Right. You can almost think of it this way, that there are two parts, right? There are two parts, two main parts to the mbira. Even though there are three voices, there are two main parts. So the left-hand side kind of plays the melody. That’s what grounds the song. And then, the right-hand side harmonizes it, right? So most sometimes, like a lot of times, when people are learning, you’d learn the left-hand side first so that you have a sense of like, you know, how the melody works. And then, you add the right-hand side. A lot of the improvisation that happens tend to happen on the right-hand side, in the harmony piece, but also in the melody piece too. Like if you’re advanced, then you can also improvise on the melody side.
>> Ryan Bruce: Could you show us those two different parts in isolation?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: OK.
>> Ryan Bruce: So could you play as the melody on the left side, and then add in the harmony on the right?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: I will OK. So this is a song called Nhemamusasa, which means to make temporary — to build temporary shelters. And this is the left-hand side, which is the melody side. So this is the simplest melody of this song. There’s more to it. It gets complicated. Maybe I can add a little bit later. So when anyone hears this part, they know that you’re playing Nhemamusasa, right, anywhere in the world.
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Now, what’s happening here is that I’m playing the melody on the left-hand side, and I’m alternating. But I’m beginning with the harmony side. So I’m going left. So right left, right left, right left.
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I’m going to harmonize on the right-hand side.
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But I can harmonize — I can also play with the melody on the left-hand side and shift it a little bit.
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You notice that I’ve added a few notes right.
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So in the first version, I was literally playing six keys per part on the left hand side. Now, I’m playing nine keys, right.
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But it can get even more intense. I can play 12 keys in the same sort of space on the melody side. And so, if I were to move from the simpler vision, if I’m going —
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And then —
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Same song, but this time around, I’m playing around with the melody on the left-hand side. And I can even make it even more intense.
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So it can get thicker, and thicker, and thicker. But usually, when you’re playing this, you’re not playing alone. This is a relational instrument. What that means is you always play with at least one more person, because each song has a call and a response. So I was playing mostly the calls when I was demonstrating the Nhemamusasa. But if my older son was here, who plays very well, I think Howard would play with him, he would usually play the calls and I play the responses.
>> Howard Spring: So the response has a different melody than what you’re showing us here?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. So if I were to play a response for the Nhemamusasa, that would be —
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What you’ll notice with the response is that it doesn’t start at the same point that the call starts. It sort of starts a little bit behind so that it — the two interlock. And you get this effect of kaka, taka, taka, kaka, taka, kata, kaka, taka, kata. So one of the things with mbira is that it’s preserved — Honestly, I want to demonstrate something with him playing.
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>> Howard Spring: Very nice, very nice. Thank you —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: — for doing that.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, thank you.
>> Howard Spring: So, Moyo, when you learn a piece, you have to learn both parts, is that right?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Right, right, right. So usually, for you to be able to actually play mbira well, you need to learn both parts, so that you have an essence of, you know, how they work together, right? So if you notice there, he was leading, so he was a little bit ahead of me. And then, when I came in, I came almost one bit behind him.
>> Howard Spring: And that’s how you get that interlock?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: That’s how we get the interlock.
>> Howard Spring: Right. So, how do you learn that? I mean, does somebody just play it for you and then you try it until you get it?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. I mean, because — Well, imagine a context in which you are immersed in the music, right? It’s — You grew up people playing. So you actually — it’s more like the way you hear it, as opposed to the way you learn it. So when you hear it played, and with the pieces working together perfectly, then when you play with other people, if it does not sound like how you are used to hearing it, you kind of have to learn to adjust, right? So, yeah, it’s really how you hear it. And this is what makes mbira a little bit complex for people in the West learning it, because if you just learn it without really listening to it first, it doesn’t work well.
>> Howard Spring: OK. So, you learn it — I think you’re saying you learnt it originally in Zimbabwe.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: And then you came here, and you — and that’s how you learnt it by listening.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: I see, OK.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Now, are all the mbiras tuned the same way?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: No. So, I said — I don’t know if I said this before, but — So mbira is basically a family instrument, meaning that each family has its own tuning, its own style of playing. So you’ll find that if you go to Zimbabwe and visit different families that play mbira, you will have — they’ll have different — like sometimes different tunings, sometimes different songs, even, right. Now, people tend to share those songs and tunings to the extent that, right now, the tunings are coming together, right? For example, what we’re doing with my son is that we’re both playing on a what we call a Nhemamusasa tuning, which is like a B flat, E flat tuning. And we’re both playing on the same key. We’re using the same tuning. And that’s like the traditional way, like simple B flat, B flat, someone plays higher, someone plays low, right? But then these days, you have what people call cross-tuning or orchestra tuning. And this was invented by a fellow called Garikayi Tirikoti. He came up with the seven different tunings that all play together. And he’s one of my teachers. So sometimes, with my son, we switch. We say, he can take a Nhemamusasa tuning and mbira tuning. So this is a Mixolydian, this is Phrygian. And we can play both together. So for the same song that we’re playing, if I call him, he actually knows how to play on both tunings. I can play on this tuning, he plays on his — this tuning, and they all — they go together really perfectly. And then suppose I have people who are experienced, they can pick up other tunings that I have. So this is a Bangidza tuning. I also have a Mahororo tuning, which is in here. Mahororo tuning is the best one. And we can combine all of them.
>> Howard Spring: Now, do they — the different tunings, they all have the same number of keys?
>> Yeah. Typically, yeah. Typical. But the number of keys doesn’t — that don’t really matter. Like the most important keys on the — So on the left-hand side — on the right-hand — on the left-hand side, typically we have about seven keys, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And this one has an extra eighth one, eighth key. And here as well, seven. Here, you only pretty much need nine, nine keys. So as long as like you have a minimum of seven keys on the top keys, nine keys on the right-hand side and seven keys on the best side, you are good, right? If you have more, you know, you can play more sounds. But the basis is that you have all those number of keys, you can play any song.
>> Howard Spring: So when the two, let’s say two mbiras are playing together with different tunings, does it change the nature of the piece?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Pretty much.
>> Howard Spring: All right.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Pretty much. It makes it — In fact, it actually makes it more complex because —
>> Howard Spring: Sure.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: — these are different modes interacting, right? Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: OK. So earlier I saw you were playing with a gourd around —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Right.
>> Howard Spring: — the mbira. Can we talk about that for a while, take a look at those —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yes.
>> Howard Spring: — and hear what it sounds with the gourd?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yes. So the gourd, this one, this is a natural gourd. We call this deze. And it’s the amplifier. So imagine a ceremony, when you’re playing mbira in a ceremonial context, or even like when you’re hanging out, you have pretty much a few elements interacting with each other. So you have the mbira instrument itself, you have ngoma, which is the drum. You have the drum. You have a hosho, the shaker. And then, you have people singing and dancing, right. Some people will dance with magavhu on, these leg shakers. So, with all these elements going on, right, there is a lot of noise. And so to, you know, create space for mbira to be heard, you have to put it in an amplifier.
>> Howard Spring: So I noticed on the bigger gourd, the natural gourd that you showed us before, there were bottle caps.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yes.
>> Howard Spring: How come there’s bottle caps on the instrument?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Because you want the sh, sh, shaka sound. You want the percussive sound to be heard as you’re playing. The spiritual explanation for that is that just like the hosho, the percussive sound on the gourd sort of clears the path for the spirits to come through. Traditionally, people won’t use bottle caps, because bottle caps, of course, came with Coca Cola colonization, right? But they would use cowrie shells. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: So can we hear maybe see you play with a gourd? The one you’ve got I think you said that we’re seeing now is fiberglass that you said.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So this is fiberglass, so that this is not natural. This is fiberglass but produced in Zimbabwe as well. And I can play a song in the gourd.
>> Ryan Bruce: Is that for durability, or is it actually louder?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: The natural gourd is louder, tend to be loud. Actually, it depends on how it is made. It really depends. But this is mostly for durability. And when you’re moving around, you want something that doesn’t break, right? Imagine you get invited to a ceremony, and on the way, it shatters and you can’t really do anything without the gourd, right? So this guarantees. But some people in Zimbabwe would say, “We don’t want this plastic stuff in ceremony,” right? They only want the natural ones. So at my centre, we’re actually growing the gourd so that people can use the natural gourd instead of using the fiberglass ones. So what I’m going to do is to play the same song that my son and I played, right, in the gourd, but on a different tuning now. So we played it on a Mahororo — Nhemamusasa tuning. I’m going to play it on a Mahororo tuning, which is a little bit deeper.
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>> Howard Spring: OK, great. So when you’re singing, are you singing one of the melodies that are being played, or is it a separate thing altogether?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It’s separate thing. It’s a separate thing. But you will find that sometimes people are singing following the melody. Sometimes, would people just like come in different parts. So — But this specific song, I was pretty much singing separate from the melody. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: You mentioned improvisation before. Is that — You know, when you’re playing a piece and you want to improvise, is that just up to you, or is there any rules about improvisation, or?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Theoretically, I think there are rules. I don’t know if I can explain them well. But I think there are some rules that like — Imagine that you’re playing with someone else, right? Imagine you’re having a conversation with somebody else, and, you know, you’re talking about dinner, right? You know, I really enjoy eating vegetarian food, for example. And then, the person starts talking about, you know, how they went and slept under a bridge in New York, right? So you kind of like have to stay within sort of like the boundaries of the melodies and harmonies that makes sense for that particular dual dynamic, right? So there are rules. I don’t know if I can explain them properly, but like for a song to be called a song, to have a name, it has particular integrity. It has a sound integrity to it. It has a melodic integrity to it. And so, you will definitely improvise but within the confines of that melodic integrity.
>> Howard Spring: Right. And is there any limit to how much you can improvise? Like in a performance, for example, is it — or does it vary? Is it mostly the composition with some improvisation, or is there — you play the piece and then you can just improvise?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It depends on your expertise, right? It depends on your expertise. The recommendation is if you are new to the instrument, please avoid improvising it all. If you’re very experienced, you do it in a way that does not sort of — it’s not like you showing off, right? If you’re playing with others, you don’t want to show-off, because usually, the improvisation in the mbira style is like really gets juicy and gets really super interesting. But when you’re playing with other people, you kind of want to like stay humble and play the simple stuff, because usually, the simple stuff is when you’re playing together with others is what really produces that beautiful community sound. Right. Improvisations tend to happen when you’re playing solo, right? And we call that a [inaudible], like where you’re showing off your prowess so to speak.
>> Howard Spring: So, Moyo, you were saying that the more skilled you are as a musician, the more improvisation is allowed, called for, whatever. But during an actual performance of a skilled player, how much of it is improvised and how much of is composed? And maybe we can hear you play something and then tell us, “This is the composed part and I’m going to the improvised part,” so we can hear the difference.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So what’s interesting about this composing and improvisation issue in mbira music is you can almost think of mbira as always — Actually, maybe I won’t say always improvise, but like there is the basic structure, and you will hear it. So Nhemamusasa, for example, you will hear many people playing it differently but within that same structure, right? What is most common is this sound here.
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So you can think of that is like the model for Nhemamusasa. But then, people play it very differently. And I think that because of the improvisation that is always ongoing, there are like different variations of Nhemamusasa in like across the whole world, right? So let me just like begin with that part, and then I will switch it and play with it. So the basic pattern.
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Most recordings of Nhemamusasa, you’ll hear this sound.
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So you might want to treat this as like the composition.
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I am improvising.
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And then I go, and I go, and I go, right? It’s unavoidable. You cannot not improvise if you are inexperienced mbira player, because in some ways, the mbira itself asks you to do that.
>> Howard Spring: What do you mean?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: What do I mean? I mean that like you hear sounds. You hear sounds. You hear sounds as you’re playing. And you’re like, ah, yeah, I hear that. Let me bring it in. I hear that. Let me bring it in, right? Almost like the ancestors are saying, “Do this now, and do this now, and do this now.” Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: That’s interesting. Yeah. You use the interesting word before, intensity, you increase the intensity. How does that work really?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Well, I — for me, it’s the depth of feeling that I have. So if I’m playing, it’s like it’s a very mellow, like almost like I feel like grounded, I feel like I’m relaxed. And then when I start shifting, you can even notice that my body is that like moving in a different way, right? So let me play Nhemamusasa again.
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Like what I’m feeling right now when I shift, it’s like this like intense, more emotion. It’s like I am in — How do I explain it? It’s like if I’m running, right, and I’m starting at a slow pace, and then I’m like, when I run faster, my heart beats faster. I start sweating. There’s a lot more going on in my emotional landscape than the beginning. So I think that’s what the intensity is. And there’s, of course, also the intensity of like sound itself, right? It becomes more complex.
>> Howard Spring: Because you’re adding notes?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Because I’m adding notes. I might like change where the beat is. I might like to even shift the beat, you know, depending on how I’m improvising.
>> Howard Spring: So let’s say a melody is 24 — you’re using 24 keys for a melody.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: So how would you add more notes?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: More notes, OK. So I have —
>> Howard Spring: To proceed.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So I have Nhemamusasa. So that is six notes right there. And each mbira song can be broken down into four equal parts. So if I’m playing six notes right there, it means all the keys that I’m going to — the notes that I’m going to play in a full cycle, because it’s a cycle, is 24. When I’m like feeling like shifting, I can go to.
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Now, I’m playing nine notes per part. So I will have 36 notes on the left-hand side. So let me just like play the full song, starting with the 24 moving to 36, and then moving to 48.
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This is, by the way, one of my favourite variations of Nhemamusasa. I’m going to shift to 48.
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Here we go.
>> Howard Spring: Right. So when you have this 24 beat, I guess cycle, and you went to 36 and to 48, when you move to 36 and 48, they’re all — that occurs in the same overall length of time?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. Yeah. So imagine —
>> Howard Spring: OK.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Again imagine I’m playing with someone else, right? This is not solo. I’m playing with somebody else, and they are playing like the basic parts, I have to improvise in this way to fit, you know, the boundaries that they have set. Yeah. So if my thing has to like run faster, that’s what I need to do to make the time.
>> Ryan Bruce: How much of a balance between — when I’m listening, I can hear parts that are sounding like they’re in twos, in groups of twos. And then at the same time, I can switch my attention and then hear what you’re doing in groups of threes. How much of a balance is there between those two, and does that change over the course of a piece?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think — I don’t know if you can help me here. So when I was playing the basic, the 24 key, what were you hearing?
>> Ryan Bruce: Well why don’t you play it again and we’ll do it right now?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: All right.
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What are you hearing?
>> Ryan Bruce: I was hearing in twos.
>> Howard Spring: So was I. There’s a melody —
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: — that’s playing we da, da, da.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Something like that.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Which dividing — Each note was divided into two. So I was hearing it in twos.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Excellent. OK. Now I’m going to go to the 36 one.
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What did you hear?
>> Ryan Bruce: I heard it in twos again.
>> Howard Spring: I’m still hearing in twos, maybe fours —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: OK.
>> Howard Spring: — you know, because it’s divided.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah, yeah.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: All right. So I am going to switch. Now, instead of playing the call, I’m going to play the response. I’m curious to hear what you hear.
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What do you hear now?
>> Ryan Bruce: Well, for me, it actually changed. I immediately heard in threes.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Exactly.
>> Ryan Bruce: And then you started doing some things. I don’t know if you’re adding more accompaniment, but then there was something that drew my attention into twos again.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: OK.
>> Ryan Bruce: It’s hard to say. I mean, I’m aware that I’m — this is the exercise, right? So there’s a —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: I’m being —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So what —
>> Ryan Bruce: There’s a [inaudible] —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. What you’ll notice, though, is that like I think in the simpler version, you definitely hear the twos and twos and twos, right? But if you — Like I’m going to do this again. So let me begin from a different — a whole different Nhemamusasa, OK? I’ll start here.
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I think this one is more increased, right?
>> Howard Spring: Yeah, absolutely. That’s why I was hearing in three for sure.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah, there’s a fast three that’s happening there. Yeah, yeah.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Exactly. So what Jacob [assumed spelling] is saying, the call and response have a different rhythm and structure, right? That is — And that then allows for the interlocking sound that you are going for with mbira. But you can also kind of do that as a solo player, right? You can do that as a sort of in the way that you sort of you bring together the harmony and the melody. Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: When you’re playing solo, is the — so you’re going to have some things that are happening in two, and some things that are happening in three. Do you divide that by your hands? So, for example, do you have one hand that’s playing two and one hand that’s playing three? Or do those rhythms actually cross between the two hands, so like a one, two?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: They tend to cross between the two hands.
>> Ryan Bruce: Interesting.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, they tend to cross between the two hands. But you’ll notice that like the harmony side almost stays in the two. But it also shifts depending on how you’re playing it. But definitely the melody side, when you’re playing solo tends to be in the — in three. I can just say that, so the call and response do have a different rhythmic structure. And this is — this makes sense, because what you’re going for is producing an interlocking sound. And then that interlocking sound can only happen when the call and responds have different rhythmic structures. Like if they are the — if they are clearly — if they are, the same, then you kind of like — like you’re kind of like almost playing parallel, like the similar way — You’re playing them in parallel with each other in a similar way. And it doesn’t work. Like you’re looking for this interlocking, not this. Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: How much do you think that the interlocking parts are result of — because you’ve described the offset of one player versus another? Is there something else that’s happening rhythmically with the twos and the threes that is important for that kind of interlock, or?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: What’s your perspective on how that works?
>> ML Yeah. One thing that you’ll notice is that, usually, the calls go — the response comes one beat behind, right? You never start in the same place. Like the emphasis of the beat in the response and the call are also very different.
>> Ryan Bruce: Is that a beat in two or a beat in three?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: I would say with the call, it will be a beat in two. With the response, it would be a beat in three. But this is me who doesn’t really know Western music theory.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah, that’s — Well, I don’t think that that’s necessary. I think that there’s a part there —
>> Howard Spring: No, that’s pretty clear.
>> Ryan Bruce: — that’s — Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: That’s pretty clear.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah, it seems clear to me.
>> Howard Spring: When do you play this music? Are there other special ceremonies where it’s played, or can you play it at any time, or can you do both?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So I started by saying that the mbira is a spiritual instrument, right? And in Zimbabwe, it’s played everywhere. However, for a lot of ceremonies, spiritual ceremonies, spiritual gatherings, this plays a critical role, right. These together with drumming, with singing and dance, allows for the spirits to visit, right. But what I would actually say is that this instrument is inherently spiritual wherever you play it, right? Like what is spiritual is actually the sound, not the context that you’re playing it in. So I might play it in a bar, but for me, that is a spiritual experience, right? I might play it in the park. That is a spiritual experience. It does not have to be necessarily in the context of a ritual or of a ceremony.
>> Howard Spring: What kind of ceremonies — That’s very interesting. But what kind of ceremonies do you hear mbira, or what kind of ceremonies are they played in?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: We — There are many ceremonies that take place like, you know, ceremonies when someone dies, ceremonies when someone is born, ceremonies where people are — when people are married, ceremonies when people break up, ceremonies at the beginning of the farming season, ceremony at the beginning of before harvest. You have a ceremony before people start eating from the fields. You have a ceremony, you know, ceremony to kind of cleanse the home, a ceremony to when there’s trouble in the family or trouble in the — on the land, and you want to get wisdom from, you know, from the ancestors. So, there are many — Like, if you think about the breadth of life experiences, there’s a ceremony for almost everything that happens in regular life.
>> Howard Spring: And mbira is always played at these ceremonies?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: And — Now, not always, because not every region of Zimbabwe has mbira, right? So sometimes, we’ll play drums, or sometimes people just sing, sometimes people dance. But in areas where there is mbira, definitely mbira is always present. It’s almost like synonymous with ceremony in certain areas. And that’s why it’s called mbira dzavadzimu, the mbira of the ancestors.
>> Howard Spring: Right. And how long would a ceremony last? In other words, if you’re an mbira player at this ceremony, how long are you playing for?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It can be two hours to three, four days. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: And are mbira players, are they — is it specialized? Is it — Like is an mbira player also do something else, they have a day gig or something like that?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Or is this all they do?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Imagine rural life, right. In rural life, you are a jack of all trades. So you grow your own food, you build your own house. You might be a midwife. Sometimes, you’re a cook. You are a carver. So it’s just like that. It’s like the mbira player is also — You know, I’m an mbira player, but I’m a lecturer at the same time, right? I do commit organizing. I — You know. You know what I’m saying? So it’s kind of like a similar thing. But mbira players hold a special place in the ceremonial context, because it’s not everybody that can play mbira, right? And you can’t replace, like if you are in an area where this — the rituals are done with mbira, you can’t replace it with anybody else. You can’t just get somebody come and play a drum. It won’t really work.
>> Ryan Bruce: About the accompaniment that you’re doing, I was wondering if we could return to something there. That right hand that you’re playing, it seemed like a lot of the notes were always descending, like you’d start at a higher note and then come down. Yeah. I heard that in some of your singing. So is that typical of most of the repertoire, or does it change a lot?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It’s a stylistic thing. It’s a stylistic thing. Many people who play mbira tend to do that. I tend to be like there’s a lot of like these descending sounds. But you can also have like ascending sounds too, depending on the song. But you’ll hear a lot of like the descending sounds. It’s just like, what I grew up hearing. Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: I wondered if that was maybe what Howard was hearing earlier when he was wondering if the accompaniment part could be possibly linked or tied to the to the singing part. Do you —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: I see what you’re saying.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah. And I think so —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: I see what you’re saying. Well —
>> Ryan Bruce: It’s stylistic. What you’re saying is something that’s stylistic makes a lot of sense. So is there other — Or do you have an example of something that might be in a different style, or it could be a different piece, but something that might sound different, or? I guess I can ask a specific question. If you have something that’s descending in the accompaniment, is your singing always going to be descending as well? Are those two things —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: No.
>> Ryan Bruce: — actually linked? No. OK.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: No.
>> Ryan Bruce: So —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: No, they’re not. No. No, because what happens is that like there’s a way of playing and singing where you’re pretty much following what the keys are saying, right. So for example, I’ll play you this song. This is called Gwenyambira.
[ Music Singing ]
You notice that like I am — I’m descending there, right? And because the song, the mbira song was composed from a vocal song, right, it actually follows the sound of the way people sing the song, right? So there are like things like that. But then, I will play Nhemamusasa and I’ll play the response.
[ Music ]
[ Music and Singing ]
There’s no sort of like clear connection between the notes and what I’m singing, right? So it really depends on the song. It also depends on the nature of, you know, people who like — Sometimes there’s a song like Nhemamusasa and I come up with my own lyrics based on my own experience, right? And there’s that freedom in composition. The singer has, or the lead singer has the license to do whatever they want with the sound, right? But then there are some songs that kind of come from people singing first, and then put on mbira. And those songs tend to kind of like match. What you’re singing is what the mbira is playing.
>> Ryan Bruce: That’s great. I might have actually missed something because there was something that might have cut out. But I’ll ask this question. Is there a repertoire of songs that are composed for the instrument only and based on the instrument without vocals, or are there pieces that are definitely written for the mbira instrument first and vocals added later?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It’s the latter. Right. So my assumption is that a lot of this stuff that we play at this moment in time, and we — It’s interesting because we have the benefit of having this whole tradition, right, you know, having had its own life for a very long period of time. So we’re kind of like adding to whatever exists. And the way we enter into that tradition, at least in my own way, my own entering into that tradition, is that the songs are there. The classical repertoire is there. And there are some people who’ve already sung those — over those classical repertoires, right? So I don’t — like I’m not — one side of it is that I don’t know, you know, whether when they were originally composed, like there was any singing. Now, one thing that people will tell you is that the way people sing now to mbira music might actually be different than the way people sing to it in the past, because people, apparently they didn’t used to just — to sing words. It was mostly vocables.
[ Singing ]
Right. So there’s a whole, like a whole style of singing we call Huro, throat, right? Now, because of — I think because of the influence of Western music, there’s a lot more sort of, what do you call it, seduction with words, right, and with composing poetry. We’d sing something, right, like there’s this like compulsion to say something in words that people can interpret easily. And I think that has to do with the influence of recording — of Western recording of the music.
>> Ryan Bruce: Do you think that the vocables that that style came, does it have some sort of spiritual significance?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: Or isn’t it — Yeah?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It is — Because you’re not saying words. You are giving sound to feeling, right? And our understanding, at least, is that like language might not be very, very old as well, right? And we’re also connected to multiple ancestors that spoke many different languages, right? So to have access to that, you might want to not use a specific language.
>> Ryan Bruce: Right.
>> Howard Spring: That’s very interesting.
>> Ryan Bruce: I’m interested in the tuning systems that are used and wondering how do the musicians decide on tuning or come about the different tunings of the keys?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Most tunings are people’s inventions, right, like individuals that invent them. And then, they get played in the family, right? So, for example, if I’m mbira player, and I have my — this tuning which is a B flat, and I visit Mhondoro, and they have — let’s say they’re using an A tuning, I will have to play with them. I will have to change my instrument and play with them, right? But because of the interaction between different families over time, you’ll notice that there are many tunings that are being played together. And more tunings are being developed because of that interaction. So, for example, when you are playing, for example, with two modes, there’s a lot more interlocking, right, that happens. And someone listen to that and went, “Oh, how can I produce that in one mbira?” And they came up with a mbira tuning in called Dongonda, where the keys on this — the upper register here, these keys here match exactly the keys on the left-hand side, sorry, on the right-hand side, right. So, because traditionally, this would be different than this, right? If you go, right, they’re different. But if you — I just learnt my Dongonda to a friend. They’re exactly the same. And when you play them, like the interlocking sound, it’s so loud — it’s so clear with just one player, right? And then I — the introductory song that I played you, I played on this mbira, which in the Western music theory is called Phrygian, right? We call it Mavembe or Gandanga. Gandanga is like it’s a rebel sound. Mavembe is like, it’s almost like moments. It’s very melancholic. And the way it came about was that one mbira maker and mbira player went to a funeral, right? And then, you know, people were crying. And then he was like, “What would — What tuning of mbira would work with this crying?” And then he came up with this tuning.
>> Ryan Bruce: Thank you. It sounds like you’re talking about some notes that are matched and different scales that are used. If you have two mbira players that are playing in the same tuning, or with the same scales, if you had the same note, I don’t know, you know, like the highest note on both of them, is it important that the actual frequency, like the actual sound is exact between the two mbiras? Or is it common that they would actually be, you know, slightly out of tune, that the tuning would be slightly different?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: I see what you’re saying. The recommendation always is that they have to be exactly the same. They have to be exactly the same. Now, sometimes, you’ll notice, sometimes people play them slightly, because, you know, in the context of mbira, for example, you’re playing all night, and you never have the time to stop to say, “Oh, let me tune my mbira, or let me make sure that it’s in the, you know, it’s in the same tuning as I started,” because you know, they move, right? The keys move a little bit. So, there is that happening too. But if there is time, they always have to be the same frequency.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah. So — And then how much does that vary, you know, in terms of when you have one set of, or one family of have instruments that are tuned to a certain frequency, is there a common or are there guidelines for tuning that are similar between different families? Or how varied is that?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: They vary. They vary in terms of mode. They vary in terms of like the scales, right.
>> Ryan Bruce: Like the exact notes?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: Yeah.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Like a completely different mbira. Like this is very different from this, right? These two are quite different. This would be a Phrygian, this would be Mixolydian, if we talk about them in terms of mode. And this is a different family of like a family that begin with Mavembe, the [inaudible] family, right? And this is a tuning that comes out of Mhondoro, mostly with [inaudible] family. They’re very different. Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: So there’s two different tunings that are happening. One is that they’re tuned to a different mode.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: Different scale altogether.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: And then there’s another one that is they’re tuned in terms of different notes that they —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: — they don’t match up.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: Could we hear them? Like just play the note — the keys on one and then the keys on the other just so we can hear the difference?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: OK. So should I play the left-hand side? Let’s see.
[ Music ]
And then this one.
[ Music ]
And this is a different one. This is this is the Mujuru family. They call it Dambatsoko.
[ Music ]
Three different families.
>> Ryan Bruce: Right.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Ryan Bruce: And different —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Now, they did —
>> Ryan Bruce: — few notes and different experience.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, but —
>> Ryan Bruce: Is what it resonates.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: But what is happening now is that people, because of interaction, right, people are combining them together. So those three that I just played you, we can play all those together. One song, we can play all those together, but of course, starting in different places, right? But you can play them in such a way that they work together. And if you go to Zimbabwe, people will start talking about what they call cross-tuning, right, because it’s a — there are different modes or different keys. And that’s what like if you — if we think of mbira music, right, so not adaptations of mbira music onto Western instruments, but a mbira music itself is actually quite different from what is get — what gets played in ceremonies. And mbira music, if you look at bands like Mbira DzeNharira, [inaudible], et cetera, they use the cross-tuning. So that’s like real innovation that is dominant in urban spaces, and in mbira, that gets used for popular entertainment. Whereas when you go to ceremonies, it’s mostly the same key, but with people playing, you know, different octaves. So like high — there’s a high mbira, there’s a low mbira. I thought I had them here, but, yeah, there’s like high, medium size, best one. But they’re all in the same key.
>> Howard Spring: So you — There’s different names for these modes, right?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Where do these names come from? Do they refer to anything specifically outside of the name of the mode?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Some of the song — Some of the names refer to the songs, to the key songs in that family. So for example, this is a Nhemamusasa tuning, right? And there are songs that are derived from the root Nhemamusasa song. And if you’re playing in a cross-tuning, the person that is, for example, let’s say I’m playing a song called Shigwaya, right, the person that is playing this mbira will automatically know they have to play it from a Nhemamusasa position, right, because Shigwaya can be Nhemamusasa, can be a Nhemamusasa Shigwaya. It can be Mahororo Shigwaya. So I have to play for the cross. One person plays on a — from a Nhemamusasa position, another person plays from a Mahororo position, right? Nhemamusasa is the name of a song. Mahororo is the name of a song. Bangidza is the name of a song. But they all have different — they are all structured differently. That’s what gives them the name, Bangidza. That’s what gives them the name Nhemamusasa, or Mahororo.
>> Howard Spring: So the names most always come from songs, or are the names — can they refer to something else?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. So, this one is called Mavembe which means murmuring, right? This is not named after a song. Some people call it a Mavembe. Some people call it Gandanga, right? And then, I also — I told you about Dongonda, which is like on the left-hand side, it matches the right-hand side of the keys. It is not named after a song — after a particular song. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: So the mbira is very important in culture. What’s that relationship between the mbira and culture?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: So, the word mbira itself can refer to the instrument, right? It can refer to a few things, a few practices that people engage in, right? So if we say, oh, [foreign language] mbira, it can mean — it means that we are going to a ceremony, right, in which the mbira instrument is being played. Mbira is also a dance style, right? So there’s a specific way of dancing that comes out of the music, right? So — And there’s a way of being that is expected of people who play mbira. So I know if — I don’t know if you know of Ubuntu, right? I am, because you are, Ubuntu philosophy, I am because of you are. So mbira is an instrument sort of mimics that philosophy, right? One, as I said earlier on, that is a relational instrument, which means two people or more play it. And they have to be in conversation with each other, right? There’s a call. There’s a response. There is dialogue. But that is also expected in human relationships, if we are dependant on each other. So in itself, it actually, mbira, the instrument, becomes a text for a philosophy of life, right, that is centred on connection, dependence, being with each other in a good way. You’ll notice that like the people that tend to play mbira tend to be very respectful, very spiritual, very grounded. And that translates to, you know, how they are in the world as well, you’d hope, right? But that is sort of like the way that the mbira instrument itself guides people on how to be in the world.
>> Howard Spring: And is that philosophy and the relationship of mbira to those ideas, is that generally accepted in the culture?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like it actually — when someone sees you hold mbira, they go, oh, [foreign language] mbira, like, oh, you are of the mbira culture, right? And there’s already an expectation that like, you know, you’re a spiritual person, you’re respectful, you’re very connected to your traditions. You are always — Like you are participating in ceremony. You eat healthy food. There’re all these like expectation, right, based on the fact that I’ll just hold mbira.
>> Howard Spring: You already touched on kind of the urban scene a little bit. Is there anything else you wanted to say about it? Because I know, you know, I’ve heard recordings of Thomas Mapfumo where he’s using Western instruments and electric guitars, but also an mbira. But even the style of electric guitar playing kind of mimics what’s going on —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: — on the mbira. Do you want to say anything about that?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. So Mapfumo, I mean people who know his history, he didn’t begin with playing Chimurenga music, right, the mbira west music. But he began with, you know, copying Elton John and all the other Western musicians. But there’s a guy whose name is Jonah Sithole who is the one who kind of, they say some — There are two guys. I forget that the other name. Jonah Sithole is the most popular one who kind of took the sound of mbira and put it on guitar and played for Thomas Mapfumo. And that’s — like that’s what got — I mean Thomas Mapfumo does not even play guitar. He doesn’t really play instruments other than like he used to be a drummer. But Jonah Sithole is the — and someone else are the ones that kind of like took the mbira and put it on guitar, right. And that really created this whole genre. They — People don’t call it necessarily mbira but — mbira, they call it Chimurenga because it emerged in the context of the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe, right? But that guitar, people call it mbira guitar. People call it mbira guitar precisely because it is — it — the sounds and the songs, right, and the style is from mbira culture. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: Is that still a popular sound in Zimbabwe?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of the bands that are popular derived from that. Like I can tell you like, you know, if you play, like, you know, this might — people might not be familiar with Zimbabwean musicians, right? But if you play like Alick Macheso, I will tell you, “Oh, this is a mbira song called Sungura, right? So it’s not just like necessarily mimicking the exact sound, but also structures of songs. Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: So I guess that would be broadly recognized that —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah.
>> Howard Spring: — an audience would see. Everybody would understand that’s what’s going on.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Jonah Sithole was very particular — was very like particular because he literally like Nhemamusasa, you’ll hear him playing exactly what I’m playing, what I was playing. Yeah.
[ Music ]
It takes that [inaudible] in a guitar, like it’s exactly photocopy, right? But, of course, you like you improvise, you play, like you mimic the high lines of the mbira by — Like if you listen to Thomas Mapfumo, like you really — you hear. And then what Mapfumo do then is then come up with different lyrics, or sometimes take lyrics from mbira families. So there’s a lot of like Thomas Mapfumo songs that are all from like [inaudible] different families, especially like his earlier albums were literally like copies from these families.
>> Ryan Bruce: That kind of leads into what I’m — another thing I’m interested in, which is about the repertoire, because you’ve mentioned that there’s — even this first piece that you played for us today would be recognized by people all over the world. And you’ve said that there’s these pieces that people know that are very, you know, standardized in certain ways, people recognize. How would you describe the repertoire? Is it fixed? Does it change? How big is it? How many pieces do people usually learn? Any insight into the, you know, the body of works or the body of the music that were — what is that basis?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: Yeah. I would say there’s like a classical repertoire. So like songs like Nhemamusasa, Bangidza, they’re all like really, really old. And then, there are songs that are emerging from people translating like vocal songs onto the mbira.
>> Ryan Bruce: How big is the classical repertoire? Like is it — To be a professional mbira player or to be an experienced mbira player, how many pieces do you learn of that repertoire?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: You know, I don’t know if I can quantify it. But someone said like there’s like 700 and something. Someone said there’s like 700 something mbira songs. I don’t know how true that is. I don’t know. Yeah, I can’t — I really cannot quantify.
>> Ryan Bruce: Well, you know, I’m not looking for an exact number, but having a kind of generalization, I mean.
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: In general. More like, if you’re playing about 25 songs, like classical songs, you’ll be able to play in many contexts. Yeah. You’ll be able to play in many contexts.
>> Ryan Bruce: And how hard is it or how easy is it if you have that kind of — You know, if you have 25 pieces under your belt, how easy is it to join into a new context where you might not know that the piece that they’re playing?
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: It’s difficult. You have to be really, really good, right? You also have to have the right tuning, you know. Yeah, because people — Like it gets complicated because mbira, you can’t just like tune it on the spot, right? It’s pretty much fixed. To tune it, it takes about an hour or so.
>> Ryan Bruce: And when people get together, do they discuss maybe the repertoire that they know so that they can find the same pieces, or how does —
>> Moyo Rainos Mutamba: They mostly discuss like, OK, [foreign language], which hands do you have, right? They’re like, oh, I have the Magaya [inaudible] hand, or I have the Nemakonde hand, or I have a Dongonda hand, whatever. And then if they — like they match, then people just playing. And if you can play, you play. If you can play the song, you play. If you can’t, you do something else. But the thing is, is that, like as I said earlier on, there’s a wide range of things that you can do to participate in an mbira music context, right? So you can drum, you can dance, you can sing, you can all ululate, you can clap, you can play a whole show. So you — here’s always something for you to do if you can play mbira.