In Zimbabwean music, mbira music is music played on an mbira, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
To many people Mbira music appears extremely repetitive, or cyclical. However, in most Mbira music, there are minute variations, suggestive of the minimalist movement in western music (for example Philip Glass et al.). Mbira music can be put in and classed with African Music. The Mbira is sometimes played in the background of a Djembe drumming group for important pieces
As usual in African music, rhythm plays an important part. The rhythms are often quite intricate and to some extent dictate the form of the melody.
Read more about Mbira Music: Shona Mbira Music
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“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
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