The equidistant heptatonic scale of the Asena in Malawi

Abstract

The musical scale of the Sena people of Southern Malawi can be characterised as an equidistant heptatonic tone system. Kubik (1968) reports: "The equi-heptatonic tuning with its standard interval of 171 cents gives an unmistakable sound to the Asena bangwe. The same scale is used for the tuning of the large ulimba xylophones" .The bangwe (a board zither) and the ulimba, belong, next to drums and rattles, to the most common instruments of the Asena in the Lower Shire Valley of Malawi. In the years 1970-1971 I measured tunings, mainly of bangwes and valimbas (this name is more common than ulimba-, another name for this xylophone is malimba) in this region.1 I will analyse these tone measurements in order to see how well they fit the model of an equidistant heptatonic scale. And if this is indeed the model that the musicians use in tuning their instruments, how large is the variability in their tuning? The deviation from the tuning model that is tolerated by the musicians is an import ant but sometimes neglected topic. These questions are also of interest to other areas where equidistant heptatonic scales are found. These areas include North East Rhodesia (Andrew Tracey: 1970) and the Southern part of Mozambique (Hugh Tracey: 1948).Below I will first give some information on the instruments and their players. Next I will analyse their tuning. These results will be compared to other data on tone measurements concerning a scale that is (almost) equidistant: the slendro scale used in Javanese gamelans (Wasisto Surjodiningrat et al: 1972). The bangwes and valimbas and their playersA bangwe is a board zither that may vary in size and number of strings. The board is about 1 cm thick and measures from 15 cm by 45 cm to 20 cm by 65 cm. The bangwe players prefer mlombwa (also called mbira) wood for the board.2 The strings are formed by winding one piece of strong steel wire through the holes at the top end and the holes at the bottom end of the board. The strings are lifted 3 to 4 mm from the board by small pieces of wood, usually bamboo. The tuning of the instru ment is accomplished by putting these pieces of bamboo at the ends of the strings in the right positions.The top end of the board is put into a paraffin tin (bekete) for resonance. A large calabash (dende) can also be used for this purpose. Some bottle tops are fixed on top of the paraffin tin in order to make a buzzing sound to accompany the playing.The bangwe is always played by men on their own, to accompany their own sing ing. The bangwe playing (kuimba bangwe) is done at home for one's own pleasure, at beer parties where people may dance to its music, and sometimes at funerals. The bangwe players that I recorded in [1970][1971] were all between about 25 and 40 years of age, except for Jester RazikeniMakoko, who was by that time 65 years old.

Reports of equitonic scale systems in African musical traditions and their implications for cognitive models of pitch organization

“…Other African instances of equitonic scale systems are cited by Jones (1964), Kubik (1982), Kyagambiddwa (1955), Rouget (1969), A. Tracey (1970, in north-eastern Zimbabwe), Wachsmann (1950, 1957, 1967), van Zanten (1980), Arom (1991a), and Cooke (1992).…”

“…Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the mapping between language and instrumental features is not perfect. For instance, van Zanten (1980) reported that the Asena do not have a name for every tone on their instruments. Instead, they have names for groups of tones, and these names vary from instrument to instrument.…”

“…Van Zanten (1980) investigated the music of the Asena in southern Malawi, in the region of the Lower Shire River Valley, and asked whether heptatonic music realized on the bangwe (a type of zither) and the multiplayer ulimba xylophone (also referred to as ‘malimba’ or ‘valimba’ xylophone) was truly equitonic. Equitone scale systems in this area were originally reported by Kubik (1968), who noted a standard interval of 171 cents.…”

Cross-cultural data shows musical scales evolved to maximise imperfect fifths

“…Equidistant scales are typically considered rare (44), and non-equidistant scales are professed to have advantages over equidistant scales (2,(45)(46)(47). However many scales are almost equidistant (48)(49)(50)(51), and given the few ways to construct an equidistant scale to assign harmonicity scores to intervals. The highest scoring intervals (frequency ratios are shown for the top five) act as windows of attraction, whereby any interval in this window is assigned its score.…”

Zur Stimmung von Xylophonen in Malawi und Nordmoçambique Kritischer Forschungsbericht und Untersuchungen

“…Allerdings muss erneut eine andere temperierte Reihe angenommen werden, nämlich eine äquidistante Heptatonik. Diese erscheint im betreffenden Kulturraum wesentlich wahrscheinlicher als eine temperierte Oktatonik oder Hexatonik, zumal sie in mehreren Musikkulturen Afrikas begegnet, nicht zuletzt auch im Süden Malawis (van Zanten 1980). Wiederum muss davon ausgegangen werden, dass bei einer Erweiterung der Skala mehr als sechs Skalentöne in den Oktavrahmen fallen.…”