improvisation

Improvisation plays a key role in mbira music. While mbira can sound repetitive to new ears, it's the very nature of the repetition that provides emphasis and a framework for variation. Structured around a common theme, the mbira player improvises with subtle changes in rhythm or melody.

Because there are no "standard" parts for an mbira song, one could say that all mbira playing is improvisation. Within the harmonic structure of an mbira "piece" — that which identifies, say, Taireva as Taireva — and even when playing the most "basic" variations, how each player moves from variation to variation is unique to each "performance".

Even when playing "the same" variation, each playing is unique. Because the rhythm and texture of the basic melody are so complex, an mbira player creates "variations" in the course of shifting accents or emphasis on certain notes or by singing along with certain notes. An accomplished mbira player brings out different aspects or relationships within the melody, thus creating and interpreting variations.

Within a melodic sequence individual pitches can be replaced by their harmonic counterparts an interval of a third, fourth, fifth, or octave away. Such substitutions give rise to new melodic rhythmic patterns without disturbing the harmonic rhythm of the piece.

The mbira's layout of keys allows a typical mbira melody to move quickly between the different octaves of the three manuals giving mbira music a rich contrapuntal texture, even though normally only one note is played at a time. A single melodic line that bounces back and forth between high and low "melodies" invites subtle, musically interesting variations on the tune. To the listener a note might be either a low note in the high melody or a high note in the middle melody. An mbira player can make a note "jump" from one melody to another by making subtle shifts in accent and emphasis, or by shifting a pitch in a variation. Melodies can seem to appear and disappear during the same sequence of notes. Bringing out a variety of inner lines in this way, an mbira player can make the same sequence of notes sound like a completely different piece of music.

As in jazz, part of the basis for improvisation is the underlying harmonic structure of each piece; this structure also makes it possible for two or more mbira players to improvise together. Ernest Brown explains that in Zimbabwe:

You don't have the word for "chord. " And you don't have an explicit body of musical theory. But you learn the music by imitation. And... if you play notes that are not in the chord, your teacher will tell you, or someone in the audience will tell you, or they'll throw a stick at you [laughs]: you don't do that. 'They'll say "Here, leave that alone. Don't play that note here." And they'll show you: "Here, play this one. " And if you analyze what they're telling you to play, they’re telling you to play the notes that are within the chord. So they’re hearing. . . the relationship of tones to each other.

Exploring the World of Music

Paul Berliner, who has written a study of jazz improvisation as well as The Soul of Mbira, observed that:

The polyrhythms that jazz musicians employ at times to animate their music are actually built into the forms of many mbira compositions. Mbira dzavadzimu players commonly perform patterns with a triple feeling in the right hand while simultaneously performing patterns with a duple feeling in the left-hand, sustaining the relationship from the beginning to the end of performances.

That discipline is essential for mbira players. Polyrhythmic architecture provides the foundation for their world of imagination. It is this world that that they operate within, exploring all the possibilities for invention it enables. Ultimately, they use polyrhythmic resources to explore ideas that are melodic and harmonic in character, and to create rhythmic ideas that have increasingly-abstract relationships to the beat. paul

Paul Berliner, interview — www.afropop.org