Thursday, September 14, 2006

new toy - lamellaphone

Here is my new toy - lamellaphone (a kind of music instrument from Africa)




















Below is a photo taken from The Pitt Rivers Musuem at Oxford
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/














Description from Wikipedia:

Lamellaphone (also called "Lamellophone") describes any of a family of musical instruments. The name comes from the Latin root "lamella" for "plate", and the Greek root "phone" for "sound". The name derives from the way the sound is produced: the instrument has a series of thin plates, or "tongues", each of which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician depresses the free end of a plate with a finger, and then allows the finger to slip off, the released plate vibrates. A tongue may be plucked either from the top or from the bottom.

A large number of lamellaphones originate in Africa, where they are known under different names including "sanza", "kisanji", "likembe", "mbira", "mbila", and "kalimba". They play an important role in African Music. They were reported as early as the 16th century, but there is no doubt they have a much longer history. The Caribbean marimbula is also of this family.

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