What's That Sound? The Mbira

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator, Speak & Tell! Director

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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You’ve heard of a pipe organ, a church organ, and a mouth organ, but how about a thumb organ? That’s the more common name for the African instrument called the mbira. The word is pronounced mm-BYE-rah.

The first mbiras were created more than 3,000 years ago on the African continent, and were made of wood. More recent versions are made of wood with metal keys, or tines. The mbira is held in both hands, with the thumbs creating the music by striking the tines. The action looks a lot like the hands-and-thumbs motion of texting on a cell phone.

The mbira’s unique tone is described as inharmonic—a dissonance that occurs when the motion of one tine creates a vibration in an adjacent tine. That first sound is complex, but eventually becomes a pure note. In order to increase the variety of vibrations, mbira players often attach metal bottle caps or seashells to the body of the instrument.

Mbira music is traditionally plated at weddings and other religious ceremonies. Its tones are thought to attract ancestral spirits.

Are you a musician? Do you play a unique or unusual instrument or brand of music? Tell us about it in the comments below, and you may be featured in an upcoming issue of LUMOS!

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.

What's That Sound? The Didgeridoo

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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And so we offer our seventh in a series of unusual instruments: DIDGERIDOO

Here’s an instrument that owes its existence to pesky insects.

Like kangaroos and that beautiful Sydney opera house, the didgeridoo is among the best-known images of Australia. And that long, strange horn has been part of Australia culture for more than a thousand years.

   

Aboriginals, the indigenous people of Australia, created the first didgeridoos from eucalyptus trees that were hollowed out by termites. Most are between 3 ft and 10 feet in length.

   

Musicologists classify the instrument as a brass aerophone. It is played by blowing air into the wood with a buzzing motion, much like how a trumpet is played. The sounds are produced by circular breathing, a tricky maneuver that requires the player to inhale and exhale almost simultaneously.

   

In Aboriginal culture, men alone play the didgeridoo. For centuries, women were prohibited from even looking at the horn for fear of disturbing the “spirits” and inviting earthquakes or other national disasters.

  

In recent years, the didgeridoo has gained popularity around the globe, both for the unusual but beautiful sound it produces but also for health benefits. A study in a British medical journal found that playing the didgeridoo may prevent snoring and asthma. Seems that circular breathing strengthens the airways. 

      

Who said termites are good for nothing?

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.

What's That Sound: Yaybahar

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

And so we offer our sixth in a series of unusual instruments: YAYBAHAR

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As scientists continue to unravel the mysteries of the universe, they are learning some strange and wonderful things about what it’s like “out there.” For example, they have begun to record some of the sounds of outer space.

Have you heard them, these sounds that bounce off and between planets and their moons? They sound much like what we’ve been told in all those space-alien movies: eerie, otherworldly, warped.

Those adjectives can be used to describe the “music” produced by the yaybahar, and I used the quotes because even the inventor of the instrument isn’t quite sure it’s really music.

The yaybahar was invented in 2009 by Gorkem Sen, who is based in Istanbul. His instrument uses drums, coiled springs and only two strings to create the otherworldly sound.

Two framed drums are connected to a long spring, which in turn is connected to a tall neck with two strings. As the strings are plucked or bowed, the vibrations travel along the coil to the drums. The sound is produced as the vibrations move back and forth along the coiled spring.

Mr. Sen has said he would like the yaybahar to be as common as the violin or the cello. But considering the instrument takes up all the space in a room, it’s unlikely we will see a yaybahar section on the symphony stage anytime soon.

And that’s a shame. This is one weird and beautiful instrument. Listen for yourself. 

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-19/its-not-space-odyssey-its-yaybahar