mbira

(redirected from Likembes)
mbira

mbi·ra

(ĕm-bîr′ə, əm-)
n.
A musical instrument consisting of a hollow gourd or wooden resonator and a number of usually metal strips that vibrate when plucked. Also called kalimba.
[Of Bantu origin; akin to Shona m-bìrà.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

mbira

(əmˈbiːrə)
n
(Instruments) an African musical instrument consisting of tuned metal strips attached to a resonating box, which are plucked with the thumbs. Also called: thumb piano
[Shona]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

mbira

A traditional Zimbabwean musical style originating with the Shona people and named for the mbira hand piano which is the style’s primary instrument.
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited
References in periodicals archive ?
The band's line-up includes three electric likembes (bass, medium and treble), equipped with hand-made microphones built from magnets salvaged from old car parts, and plugged into amplifiers.
The band, below, was founded back in the 1960s by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembe (a traditional instrument sometimes called sanza or thumb piano, consisting of metal rods attached to a resonator).
Mingiedi Mawangu founded the group in the 1960s, adapting the ritual music of his Bazombo ethnic group to be performed by musicians using electric likembes (box-resonated lamellophones) with pickups made from junkyard scraps, and percussion ranging from the traditional to the makeshift (pans, pots, and car parts), all amplified through a distortion-prone sound system.
Konono No. 1
Drawing on traditional Bazombo trance music, it centers on the sounds of multiple likembes (thumb pianos) distorted by a jerryrigged amplification system and combined with percussive instruments and lyrics chanted through megaphones.
Debra Singer
But by 2000 the group had reformed as Le Tout Puissant Likembe Konono N[degrees]1 with three electric likembes, a drumkit made of hub caps, and a PA system made of two 'lance-voix'--megaphones dating back to the days when the Belgian colonists broadcast radio in the streets.
Konono N[degrees]1 was founded over 25 years ago by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembe (the traditional instrument sometimes called 'sanza' consisting of metal rods attached to a resonator).
Any musicologist will tell you that the likembe is just one of a family of instruments found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa (and the diaspora) north of the Limpopo.

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