Plucked Idiophones

Plucked idiophones are also called lamellophones, which means plate or tongue sound. Sound is produced when one end is fixed and the other end is free so that when flexed and then released, the free end vibrates as it returns to its position of rest. They have existed in Africa for thousands of years. The tines (lamella) were originally made of bamboo but over the years metal keys have been developed. Gerhard Kubik, in his 1998 book Kalimba, Nsansi, Mbira: Lamellophone in Afrika, makes the case for the kalimba being invented twice in Africa: The wood or bamboo-tined instruments appeared on the west coast of Africa as early as 3,000 years ago, and the metal-tined instruments were invented around 1,300 years ago. These metal-tined instruments first appeared in the Zambezi River Valley and then traveled across the continent to Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where they were called mbiras. There are numerous designs, with various numbers of tines, and tunings across Africa, that are most commonly referred to today as kalimbas. In the mid-1950s, the mbira was the basis for the development of a westernized version designed and marketed by the ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey (called kalimba) that has lead to an expansion of the instrument outside Africa.

There are two basic types:

#1 Those that are attached to a resonator, such as a thumb piano (Sanzas/Mbiras/Kalimba), and
#2 Those that are attached to a rod or frame, such as a Mouth’s Harp (the player’s mouth cavity is used for resonance).