Mbira

Uncommon card · No. 75655

Mbira ( əm-BEER-ə; Shona pronunciation: [ᵐbira]), also known as kalimba and zanza (or variant spellings), are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. The instruments consist 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 and/or fingers. Musicologists classify it as a lamellaphone, part of the plucked idiophone family of musical instruments. In Eastern and Southern Africa, there are many kinds of mbira, often accompanied by the hosho, a percussion instrument. It is often an important instrument played at religious ceremonies, weddings, and other social gatherings. The "Art of crafting and playing Mbira/Sansi, the finger-plucking traditional musical instrument in Malawi and Zimbabwe" was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. The kalimba was commercially produced and exported...

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