Google releases musical doodle on Mbira, more on Zimbabwe’s national instrument

Today’s Google doodle popularizes Mbira, Zimbabwe’s national instrument as Zimbabwe’s Culture Week begins on Thursday, May 21. Read further to know more on it.

The Mbira is an African musical instrument, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It consists of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs (at minimum), the right forefinger (most mbira), and sometimes the left forefinger.

The music played on the Mbira, often consists of two or more interlocking and cyclical parts marked by polyrhythmic complexity. Songs lend themselves to improvisation, so no two performances are exactly alike.

The Mbira features prominently in a variety of Shona ceremonies, and it remains a vital link to the past through songs that have been passed down over centuries. While the Mbira was traditionally played by men, Zimbabwean women have increasingly taken up the instrument in recent years and continue to push its timeless sound in new and contemporary directions.

Although Mbira is an ancient instrument, it was commercially produced and exported by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey from the 1950s onward, popularizing the instrument outside Africa; Tracey's design was modelled after the mbira nyunga nyunga.

Joseph H. Howard and Babatunde Olatunji have both suggested that mbira (and other metal lamellaphones) are thoroughly African, being found only in areas populated by Africans or their descendants. Similar instruments were reported to be used in Okpuje, Nsukka area of the south eastern part of Nigeria in the early 1900s.

In the mid 1950s, the Mbira was the basis for the development of the kalimba, a westernized version designed and marketed by the ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey, leading to a great expansion of its distribution outside Africa.

Click the link below to see more from Google doodle on the vital usage of Mbira and know more about Zimbabwe’s rich culture.