The Talking Drum .Newsletter Issue No. 16 September 2001 Network for promoting Intercultural Education through Music (NETIEM) Pan-African Society of MusicalArts Education (PASMAE) Prof. E Oehrle, School of Music, University of Natal, Durban, 404 1 South Africa Fax: +27 (3 I) 260- 1048 E-mail: [email protected] % Editor: Prof. Elizabeth Oehrle 16 Illustration for The Talking Drum: Dina Corrnick Design and production: Graphicor Editorial The Talking Drum continues Southern African n celebration of The Talking to aim to promote educatorslmusicians form IDrum's tenth year an intercultural education most of our readership (South upgrading of this publication is through musiclda.nce. It began Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, in order. Further the time is as a database and resource on Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana right to call upon publications and people in the and 'Malawi). We also reach ethnomusicologists, and know. Gradually it evolved into Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Gabon, others working in the field, a collection of resource the Gambia, Sierra Leone, who regard applied materials and ideas which are Nigeria, Zambia, Madagascar, ethnomusicology as important used extensively in primary, Democratic Republic of in Southern Africa to secondary and tertiary Congo, Tanzania, Scandinavia, contribute to this and future institutions throughout South the UK and USA. issues. Thus, invitations were Africa and beyond. Our thanks to Dargie, sent to key people requesting Feedback indicates that The Dlamini and Goddard. We them to share their wealth of Talking Drum's impact is took forward to submissions relevant musical knowledge positive. From South Africa: from others who regard and materials. Submissions "...may Icompliment you on applied ethnomusicology as for TheTalking Drum were The Talking Drum. I have seen important in Southern Africa. requested. This issue features more interesting stuff in it Your contributions will help to articles by Dave Dargie, than anywhere else in the SA bridge the gap between the professor of music at Fort education circles. We need to available, but largely Hare University, Sazi Dlainini, spread the word". From the untapped, research materials musician and graduate student United States of America sitting on shelves round the at the University of Patricia Shehan Campbell country and the very real Natal (UND)- Durban, and writes: "...an impressive needs voiced repeatedly for Vicky Goddard, graduate of effort". In addition librarians such materials by those in' the UND and innovative teacher in many parts of Africa field of musicldance of the musics of Africa. request copies of The Talking education. Drum, the latest being Mkoba Teachers' College in Zimbabwe. Elizabeth Oehrle Magical Musical Bows O Dave Dargie, University of Fort Hare I. ORIGINS are still around.They are wonderful instruments. With some the player I. I. From Weapon to Musical produces such clear tones you can feel Instrument them pulling at your insides. Other Some of humankind's most important bows produce rich, full sounds, a inventions were first developed as mysterious collections of tones. To weapons-for example, the rocket ships realise just what one is hearing takes a with which people explore space.The lot of listening, a lot of concentration. same type of origin is indicated for one For me, from the first time I heard of Africa's most important families of recordings of bows they had a magic musical instruments. calling deep to the spirit. From then on Imagine yourself as one of the little I was compelled to go looking for people, the hunter-gatherers who musical bows. inhabited this part of the world many Of all the musical instruments made hundreds of years ago. For providing by people, musical bows may appear to yourself with food, you use a weapon be among the simplest, but they passed down to you by your ancestors: produce complex results. Look at how a small bow, which shoots small arrows A:- Rock painting, copied by G.W. Shaw, they work. tipped with poison.The poison itself is showing a Bushman using seven shooting perhaps not so dramatic- more bows as a musical instrument: from The soporific than deadly. You have to Musical Instruments of the Native Races of 1.2. The Mouth as Resonator spend hours stalking some edible South Africa by P. R. Kirby. (Witwatersrand Sticking a bow firmly into the ground University Press, 1965) animal, and then when at last you get a increases the sound coming from the shot into it, it runs off at great speed. The frontispiece of Kirby's book on 4, string, when the string is tapped or You have to follow it until the poison instruments (see illustration A) is a beaten.The next step is to find a better takes effect enough to slow the prey picture copied by a British soldier over way to control that sound. Holding the down and make it sleepy.Then at last a hundred years ago, from a cave bow firmly against the side of the you are able to come up to it and give painting in Lesotho. It shows a man mouth enables the player to use the it the quietus with (probably) a large squatting on his haunches, tapping on mouth as a resonator. In this way the rock. the strings of seven hunting bows player not only amplifies the basic By now you are maybe a long way which have been fixed into the ground. sound or fundamental tone, but now from home. So you have to drag or In the background a group of people the overtones or partial vibrations of carry your prize all the way back, and are dancing to the rhythm of his music, the string become audible. By shaping there you and your family skin it and the rhythm of musical bows. the mouth the player can select which cook it, and - at last- you can enjoy It's possible that musical bows also overtone to amplify, just like someone your well-earned meal.And having arose from other origins. They have playing that ancient European and Asian eaten, like human beings everywhere, certainly been around for hundreds of instrument, the Jews Harp. you can do with a bit of entertainment. years, and are found in "Bantu" languages It is interesting that the Bunun peo- When you fired off your arrow, you and KhoiSan Africa. It does seem fairly ple ofTaiwan use a mouth bow on heard your bow produce a musical certain however that at least some which a seven-note scale can be played, tone. Maybe that could be the basis of mouth-bows (see 1.2.) have a hunting as with the Jews Harp (Illustration B). some organised music. So you try to bow ancestry. In Kavango in 1981 1 Mouth bows are made in Southern amplify the sound a bit - to make it recorded'a hunting bow used as a musical Africa, and work somewhat differently. louder and easier to use. Hold your instrument - the lipuruboro (see 3.4.). In our part of the world the bow string bow down on a hard patch of earth, When Kirby compiled his famous is short enough, and strung tightly and tap the string with an arrow, and book there were dozens, if not more enough, to make it possible as a rule there you are! The tone is much louder. than dozens, of kinds of musical bows only to obtain the first five overtones Now you have the basis of a musical used in the southern part of Africa. easily.These are all notes of the same instrument. Some have since disappeared, but many major chord. However, it's easy to a large bow with calabash resonator. In 2. Features and Structures of Xhosa umhadi means a hole. So one Musical Bows could call the uhadi the "singing hole". The strange mellow sound of the uhadi 2.1. Types of Resonators comes clearly from the hole in the So far we've noted three types of calabash. In Zulu the same instrument resonators used for musical bows: the is called ugubhu, a name apparently mouth, calabashes, and other artificial referring to the hollowness of the resonators. (These days it seems nobody calabash resonator. sticks bows into the ground to improve Kirby and others have written the sound, or uses holes in the ground about bow players who use holes in as resonator.) the ground as resonators.Apparently that does not happen any more. Five- 2.2. Braced & Unbraced Bows litre oil tins are used as resonators for The hunting bow is an arc of wood the bow type instruments called, in with a string stretched between the Lesotho, sehankule and sekotara. If two ends. This type of construction is necessary, bow makers will use used in many musical bows. However, a whatever works when calabashes further variation in structure is B: A chinese mouth bow: the Bunun cannot be obtained such as jam tins or frequently used: the bow string is (Taiwanese) Rotok, played by Dr I-to Loh. even plastic containers; however, it's braced by a tie or a loop attached to, or hard to beat the calabash sound. passing around. the bow stick. alter the fundamental tone. by touching or holding the string to shorten its length.Then a higher fundamental tone C: PLAYING UHADI: \ is obtained, and a different set of over- tones can be heard and used. The play- er can follow a melody by touching or not touching the string, and resonating the chosen overtones with the mouth. Different peoples in southern Africa may use different intervals between the bow fundamental tones, producing dif- ferent chords and scales. 1.3. Artificial Resonators It's an easy step from using one's own mouth as the resonator for an ' instrument to using an artificial mouth.