Mbira

What the mbira is

The mbira is a lamellophone, an instrument whose sound comes from metal strips, called keys or tines, fixed to a board and plucked by the thumbs and a finger. Among the Shona people of Zimbabwe there are several kinds, and the best known is the mbira dzavadzimu, the "mbira of the ancestors", also called the nhare, "iron" mbira, played mainly by the Zezuru Shona.

The mbira dzavadzimu has between 22 and 28 metal keys on a hardwood board, arranged in banks: a lower and an upper bank for the left hand and one for the right. The player holds it with both hands and plays the left keys with the left thumb and the right keys with the right thumb and index finger. The sound is a ringing, overlapping pattern that can seem to be played by more than one musician.

The deze and the buzz

The board is usually set inside a large gourd called a deze, which amplifies it. Metal beads, bottle tops or shells are fixed to the board and the gourd so that they rattle against it: the buzz is part of the sound and players consider it essential. Gourds are now sometimes replaced by fibreglass resonators moulded on a gourd, partly because of recurrent droughts.

The bira ceremony

The mbira dzavadzimu is above all a ceremonial instrument. It is played at the bira, an all-night ceremony in which an ancestral spirit is called to speak through a medium, so that the community can ask for advice. The ensemble is usually singers, a hosho (gourd shaker), and at least two mbiras. One player takes the lead part, the kushaura, and the other the interlocking kutsinhira, which fills in with the bass. Each spirit is thought to have a favourite song.

The instrument also plays at funeral wakes, memorials and healing rites, and in Malawi, where it is called the sansi, the songs often carry messages about good behaviour or recount events of the past.

How old is it?

Some sources claim the mbira has been played for more than a thousand years, but that figure is hard to verify. What is documented is much later: in 1586 the Portuguese missionary João dos Santos described an ambira that he had seen on his travels in south-eastern Africa. The mbira reached an international audience in the 1970s through the recordings and writings of the American ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner, whose study of mbira dzavadzimu players in Zimbabwe remains a standard text.

UNESCO

In 2020 UNESCO inscribed the art of crafting and playing mbira/sansi, the finger-plucking traditional musical instrument in Malawi and Zimbabwe on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The joint nomination by Malawi and Zimbabwe had been put forward in 2018, when it was not inscribed, and was resubmitted.

Mbira and kalimba

The kalimba is a modern thumb piano adapted from the mbira, and sold in many countries; it is easier to learn and not used for the ceremonies of the mbira. See our page on the kalimba. Zimbabwe's other great traditional art is its stone sculpture; read about Shona sculpture.

Questions

What is an mbira?

A traditional thumb piano of the Shona of Zimbabwe, made of metal keys on a wooden board, often set in a gourd.

What is the mbira dzavadzimu?

The "mbira of the ancestors", the Shona mbira played at bira ceremonies to call the spirits.

Is the mbira the same as the kalimba?

No. The kalimba is a modern instrument adapted from the mbira; the two share a design but not their tunings or ceremonial role.

How many keys does an mbira have?

The mbira dzavadzimu usually has 22 to 28; other Shona mbiras have more or fewer.

What are the buzzers on an mbira?

Bottle tops, beads or shells fixed to the board or gourd that rattle against it. The buzz is part of the traditional sound.

Further reading

Read about the kora, the harp-lute of West Africa, about African musical instruments, or about Southern Africa.