Timbila tuning examples
In 1997, I spent 6 months in South Africa and Zimbabwe. 3 of
those months saw me working at Mmabatho High School (6 years worth of students,
age 12 to 18) teaching African Marimba and taking part in the Music program in
general. The marimba ensemble that was there had a full set of Zim style
marimbas made at Kwanongoma College. There was also a set of 6 Timbila (Chopi
style marimba from Mozambique) that was in very poor repair. The timbila were
also made at Kwanongoma by the late Olaf Axelsson (Maria Minnar's father, Peta
Axelsson's husband) and originally included the F# for some odd reason. I
received permission from the High School to remake these marimbas in a more
traditional African tuning. I chose the Chopi Timbila tuning because that's
where these instruments got their original design from. Andrew Tracey was kind
enough to email me the tuning specs and it was easy enough to turn these timbila
back into their mother tuning. I was able to salvage four of the six timbila to
cover baritone through soprano ranges. I replaced the buzzer system on the spun
aluminum resonators in a way that brought forth a bit more buzz. I then either
lowered the pitch of the resonators by reducing the opening of the mouth with
PressStick, or raised the pitch by giving the bottom of the aluminum a good
whack with a mallet to dent it inwards.
The kids who made up the ensemble were all in Standard 5, 6, or 7, (grades 7, 8,
or 9) because the older kids in the school were too consumed by school work to
be continuing in the marimba ensemble. They called themselves Morabaraba Marimba
Ensemble, and together we played numerous events, firstly on the Kwanongoma
marimbas that I helped them fix up and retune, then on the Timbila that we
retuned to Chopi tuning, and finally on a new set of marimbas that I built in
the three months that I was working there.
I offer these MP3's as learning devices to further understand the place of
tuning in the world of marimbas. Some of the pieces will sound familiar to some
of you. Some of them were extracted from Dr. Andrew Tracey's fine article
entitled "Kambazithe Makolekole and his Valimba
group: A glimpse of the technique of the Sena xylophone". All examples on this
website are here for educational purposes and are not for sale. No animals were
harmed in the making of them. No copyrights to this or any music are held by
myself or anyone else involved in this website.
1) Njiva Womera
Manthanga.mp3 Njiva Womera Manthenga - Two timbila.
2) Wamkwira Mwana 2 parts.mp3
Wamkwira Mwana 2 parts - Two timbila.
3) Wamkwira Mwana 3 parts.mp3
Wamkwira Mwana 3 parts - Three timbila. This piece uses a two-note cross-rhythm
part transcribed into pitches on the marimba. This part can be heard coming in
second. The whole piece is an octave lower than the previous version.
4) Amaxoxo.mp3 Amaxoxo - Three timbila.
5) Rugare.mp3 Rugare - Four timbila.
6) Malikebo 2 phrase.mp3 Malikebo 2
phrases - Three timbila. Two phrases of a four phrase piece. This was towards
the end of my stay and the kids didn't quite learn the whole piece. This has a
similar two-note cross-rhythm part transcribed onto the timbila. The
cross-rhythm part is the opening one. The part is not placed accurately, though
it still gives a good impression of how it makes the piece even more complex.
7) Namala Nakupangana.mp3 Namala
Nakupangana - Two timbila with handclapping. The addition of handclapping helped
to keep this song together as it's a bit tricky.
8) Peacemaker.mp3 Peacemaker - Three timbila and
hosho.
9) Sizwe marimba.mp3 Unknown - This is the
full marimba ensemble played in regular tuning (just intonation).
Well, regular despite the fact that the instruments would constantly go out of
tune... The bass and baritone had huge fiberglass gourd type resonators that we
were able to make sound pretty good.
The Tuning - High to Low
# Hz Cents Pitch
20 1024 708 C +8
19 928 538 A# +38
18 848 382 A -18
17 760 192 G -8
16 696 1240 F +40
15 618 1034 D# +34
14 564 876 D -24
13 508 695 C -5
12 464 538 A# +38
11 420 365 A -35
10 376 174 G -26
9 340 0 F 0
8 307 1023 D# +23
7 280 863 D -37
6 254 695 C -5
5 228 508 A# +8
4 208 349 G# +49
3 188 174 G -26
2 172 20 F +20
1 154 1023 D# +23
This is the tuning as Andrew Tracey supplied it to me (he got it from a timbila
that Venancio Mbande had made for him). He warned that it had been a while since
Venancio had checked it. Also it was measured with a set of 54 tuning forks so
it's not accurate to the nearest cent. It's a rough approximation of the Chopi
tuning... which was good enough for me at the time. Note that two of the octaves
are shrunk by 20 cents, 4 of the octaves are perfect (1200 cents), and the rest
are stretched by 11 to 40 cents. Key #6 is referred to as Dawumbila, the Chopi
tonic. The note that the whole scale is built around. My sense is that this is
similar to the Chinese concept of Huang Chung, the Golden Tone, the one note
that begets all others.
Stephen Golovnin
Nyamuziwa at Yahoo dot com