Marimba

This innovative way of teaching mbira in Zimbabwe is a result of 6 years of classroom experimentation with students at Music Crossroads Academy, Zimbabwe. It was inspired by the need to improvise on mbira in a jazz ensemble. The traditional way of just learning traditional songs has rendered the mbira stagnant for too long. There is a need to enhance creativity and break away from limitations brought about by traditional conservatism if this instrument is to remain relevant in the music industry. The approach used in this mbira curriculum also helps to structurally breakdown ancient traditional mbira pieces for analysis.

The idea of playing scales and arpeggios on mbira is unthinkable to those who have criticized my approach but I think there is a need to create new knowledge systems as the world moves on.

La marimba forma parte de la gran diversidad de la música de Latinoamérica, en Guatemala y el sureste de México es un símbolo de identidad de la cultura popular, a lo largo de su desarrollo se han distinguido gran cantidad de intérpretes, compositores y constructores, ofreciéndonos un vasto repertorio en diversos estilos musicales que, a través de los años, han persistido mediante la transmisión oral y la enseñanza sustentada en la tradición familiar. Los autores
que han escrito sobre la marimba en estos países, en su mayoría han abordado aspectos del origen del instrumento y su historia enfocada principalmente a las transformaciones morfológicas, muy pocos han documentado el desarrollo musical de la marimba con sus aportaciones
e influencias. Con este trabajo se abordada por primera vez el tema del desarrollo técnico de la ejecución de la marimba a cuatro baquetas y la improvisación, uno de los elementos más importantes para la comprensión del desarrollo y evolución en la marimba. Se estudia de manera más detallada el desarrollo musical de la marimba considerando sus procesos históricos para llegar a entender las razones del alto nivel técnico y musical de las agrupaciones marimbísticas, de sus ejecutantes y de cómo la improvisación alcanza la importancia que tiene en la actualidad. A través de un análisis de los procesos históricos y de las grabaciones del siglo XX, se ofrecen nuevos elementos para comprender las aportaciones de la marimba desde una perspectiva musical aunada a el contexto histórico y social donde se desenvuelven.
Se analiza y estudia la ejecución de las cuatro baquetas en la marimba, su desarrollo técnico y musical, así como las aportaciones de sus principales exponentes. Se propone una Clasificación de los
diferentes tipos de improvisación con sus referentes históricos y genera las bases para el estudio de la improvisación en la marimba tradicional con mayor certeza, centrado en el seguimiento a la aportación de nuevas técnicas de ejecución, a las transcripciones, adaptaciones y composiciones que continuamente siguen transformándose.

The marimba takes part of a great diversity of the Latin-American music, in Guatemala and the southeast of Mexico it is a symbol of identity of the popular culture. Throughout its development many marimba players, composers, and marimba constructors have been distinguished, offering us an extended repertoire of diverse musical styles that through the years has endured by the oral transmission and the sustained teaching in the familiar tradition. The authors that have written about the marimba in this countries, in the majority, they have addressed aspects of the origin of the instrument, and its history mainly focused on the morphological
transformations. Very few have documented the musical development of the marimba with its contributions and influences. In this work it will be presented for the first time the matter of technical development of the performance on the marimba with four mallets, and the improvisation improvement, one of the most important elements for the comprehension of the development and evolution of the marimba. The musical development of the marimba is studied more in detail considering its historical processes to get to understand the reasons of
the high technical and musical level of the marimba groups, its musicians, and how the improvisation reaches the importance that has gotten in the present. Through an analysis of the historical process and the recording of the XX century new elements are offered to comprehend
the contributions of the marimba from a musical perspective along with the historical and social context where they were developed. The performance of the four mallets on the marimba are studied and analyzed, as well as its technical and musical maturity, and the contributions of the main exponents. A classification of the different types of improvisation with their historical reference are suggested, and it generates the basis for the study of the improvisation
in the traditional marimba with more certainty, centered in the monitoring of the contribution of new techniques of performance, transcriptions, adaptations, and composers that continuously keep transforming the marimba music.

Desde los años noventa, con la consolidación de un
movimiento social afroecuatoriano que ha reclamado sus
derechos políticos y culturales, la marimba surgió como
un potente símbolo de la identidad afroecuatoriana.
Este ensayo hace una evaluación crítica de los usos de la
marimba tanto en la música folclórica como en fusiones
populares híbridas, señalando su papel en el fomento
de la autodeterminación negra y de su cultura popular
en el país, pero también llamando la atención sobre la
capacidad de esta narrativa encomiástica de enmascarar
las continuas discrepancias de poder que acechan tras la
promoción de un folclor hibridizado y de una identidad
nacional multicultural.

Esta investigación busca preservar los saberes musicales afroesmeraldeños de los repertorios de arrullos, chigualos y alabaos. A partir de los testimonios de algunos de los más importantes cantores e intérpretes de la tradición de la Provincia de Esmeraldas. Se exponen los cantos de arrullos, como una celebración de religiosidad popular, donde confluye la fiesta y el milagro como acontecimiento central. Así mismo la importancia de mantener los ritos fúnebres de chigualos y alabaos.

Against the backdrop of a tremendous surge in ethnic identity politics and social movement organizing over the last two decades in Ecuador, this article explores two complementary musical trends that have emerged in reference to the country’s Afro- Ecuadorian population. The first showcases the traditional music and dance of the marimba as a symbol of Afro-Ecuadorian identity. The second features numerous
popular music fusions of the marimba repertoire with genres including rock, salsa, reggaetón, and more, with broad appeal to audiences throughout the country and beyond. The new popularity of the marimba clearly marks a moment of arrival for Ecuador’s black community, one coinciding with and contributing to its increased visibility on the national political stage. This paper makes a critical appraisal of this moment of arrival, noting its justly celebrated successes in advancing black self-determination and popular culture in the country, while also sounding a cautionary note about this celebratory narrative’s ability to mask the continued discrepancies of power that lurk within the promotion of hybridized “folklore” and a multicultural national identity.

This article discusses the way a musical instrument marimba is figured in relation to social identities and relations in Edwin Semzaba’s novel Marimba ya Majaliwa. It argues that the novel creates an imaginary world in which marimba is a central instrument that acts as an object of mimetic desire between the novel’s hero and his antagonist. So too, the marimba and the marimba competition are used in the novel to performatively construct Tanzanian national identity.

During my field study of balafon music in the region of the Bobo and Bamana tribes of West Africa, I observed that this oral culture pertains to an embodied practice: musical concepts like rhythm and melody are embodied in forms of bimanual coordination and spatial distance of the two-arm striking movements. Through the method of participant-observation - in this case learning and rehearsing with local balafon musicians - my artistic views as a classically-trained marimba performer in a tradition depending on symbolic representation of the music, have been challenged and enriched.

Desde los anos noventa, con la consolidacion de un movimiento social afroecuatoriano que ha reclamado sus derechos politicos y culturales, la marimba surgio como un potente simbolo de la identidad afroecuatoriana. Este ensayo hace una evaluacion critica de los usos de la marimba tanto en la musica folclorica como en fusiones populares hibridas, senalando su papel en el fomento de la autodeterminacion negra y de su cultura popular en el pais, pero tambien llamando la atencion sobre la capacidad de esta narrativa encomiastica de enmascarar las continuas discrepancias de poder que acechan tras la promocion de un folclor hibridizado y de una identidad nacional multicultural

The relationship between creativity and research methods will be approached from two fundamental stances:
1. A simple interpretation of the definition of creativity: the use of imagination and original ideas that brings a theory, a concept, or an artifact into existence; in here, a research methodology is undoubtedly considered as a product of creativity;
2. I would like to reword and rephrase the statement ‘Artistic idiosyncrasy perverts research objectivity’ into ‘(artistic) research objectivity contains artistic idiosyncrasy’.

In other words, if we assume that creativity creates research method, then artistic idiosyncrasy, or say, the artistic originality imbued in creativity is embedded in the research method. It is wrong to say that research methods pervert artistic practices; instead, research methods generate artistic practices. Research method is to inspire, it is the 'eureka' of an artistic creation.

In this presentation, I will describe the research method of my doctoral project to explain the above stances. The project is designed to search for new materials from the ethnic music instrument, the African balafon to enrich the repertoire of the marimba, a Western idiophone instrument. The African balafon shares common features with the marimba in motor mechanisms, but greatly differ in playing technique, performance practice and musical approach. Divided into four stages, the first three stages 1) learning the music 2) analysis and 3) experimentation have led to various artistic findings that will contribute to the new creations resulting in stage 4) immediate transcriptions.

The second part of the presentation will exemplify how another musician has employed diverse research methods and has led to other artistic outcomes, though the projects share similar artistic goals. The objective of Confrontations  by Belgian composer Wim Henderickx is to confront the African and Western percussion styles but merges into one composition. He has first composed an ensemble work utilizing both ethnic and Western rhythmic concepts, and then experimented with both groups of percussionists during the rehearsals to figure out a common ground in music interpretations.

This is a power point presentation of my paper on the musical figuring of identity and conflict in Edwin Semzaba's novel Marimba ya Majaliwa. The paper was published in 2015 in  IRASM: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 46 (2): 401—421.

O presente trabalho de conclusão de curso trata da transcrição para marimba da obra de J. S. Bach, Ciaccona BWV 1004, composta em 1720 e pertencente aos Sei Solo, que é um conjunto de sonatas e partitas escritas para violino. Os conceitos de transcrição, arranjo e adaptação são esclarecidos através da observação do uso corrente na literatura atual. Alguns dados relevantes sobre o compositor e a Ciaccona são elucidados, bem como uma breve contextualização da marimba é apresentada, incluindo questões técnicas inerentes a sua execução, para situar o leitor no contexto desta pesquisa. E por fim, apresentamos a transcrição final, procurando ser o mais fiel possível à obra original.

This paper explores the intersection of three common ethnomusicological themes—ethnic identity, international migration, and mediated music—and their interrelation within the online formation of community space. It concerns a transnational community of Mayan people who speak a language called Q’anjob’al, and who are originally from the northwestern highlands of Guatemala, but have thousands of emigrants living in the United States. For the past several decades, scholars of migration have debated the significance of transnational communication between immigrants and their sending communities. Sociologist Roger Waldinger (2004) has argued that communication patterns among hometown communities that span national borders are fundamentally no different in the twenty-first century than they were in the twentieth. I agree, however, with scholars such as Michael Smith and Luis Guarnizo that modern technology has radically changed the ways in which immigrants consider their identity in relation to their sending community. In particular, I observe the process of internet-based musical exchange among Q’anjob’al Maya in Los Angeles and Guatemala to argue that indigenous identity ties are not only strengthened through online radio broadcasts, but furthermore, that they shift the production of local identity into a transnational community space.

Ensayo sobre la identificación de los habitantes de la zona noroeste de Ecuador (Esmeraldas) y la zona suroeste de Colombia (Tumaco), como pertenecientes a una sola región geográfica y cultural, con expresiones comunes como los ritmos afro de la marimba, además de la gastronomía y los patronímicos, por encima de las fronteras geopolíticas que no han logrado separarlos.

The article discusses the decolonial possibilities of the collective design of a sound artwork in reimagining the role of two Afro-Ecuadorian music and dance-based events in the Afro-Ecuadorian ancestral territories of North Esmeraldas and Chota-Mira. The two events, Bomba del Chota and Marimba Esmeraldeña, emerged in the context of slavery and colonialism as a response of Afro-Ecuadorians to the oppression and violence they endured. These two music and dance-based events sustain a counter-narrative of power and resistance for Afrodescendant peoples in Ecuador, weaving meaningful connections among them and other entities populating their territories, such as the "devil," whose cohabitation with Afro-Ecuadorians will be at the spotlight of our analysis. Based on the audio-recorded testimonies of these connections that strongly existed until the 1970s, and of a sonic composition that was created from them, we propose a collaborative design of a sound artwork in the public spaces of the jungle in Esmeraldas and the mountain in Chota-Mira. We discuss how a decolonial approach to the design of the artwork can serve as a dialogical space to engage inhabitants in their re-connection to the possibilities of resistance that their ancestors nurtured in their territories through the practice of the two music and dance-based events. Through a political reading of soundscapes, an argument is developed to show how sound constructs the public spaces that root people in their territories, connecting them with meaningful stories and practices that keep being forgotten due to the ongoing consequences of slavery and colonialism. The article contributes to the discussion about political ecologies and the collective production of public spaces as a joyful response to exclusion and oppression.

Resumen
La investigación, bajo el paradigma cualitativo, explora uno de los elementos fundamentales en la
construcción de la marimba guanacasteca: las baquetas. Por ello, como objetivo de trabajo las
acciones están dirigidas específicamente hacia el diseño, construcción, materiales y función de las
baquetas en la marimba guanacasteca. Este instrumento tiene un transfondocultural profundo,
evidenciado en procesos, maderas y tipos de baquetas utilizadas según la posición de ejecución; la
cual varía en la maza, con una mayor o menor dureza. Para su elaboración se utiliza savia del árbol
de hule (castilla elástica) y madera de guatil (genipa americana).
Palabras claves: Música tradicional; folfklore; marimba; marimba guanacasteca; tradición oral;
Abstract
This research, within the qualitative paradigm, explores one of the fundamental elements in the
construction of Guanacaste´s marimba: drumsticks. Therefore, as a work main objective the actions
are directed specifically towards the design, construction techniques, materials employed, and on the
function of the different drumsticks used in the marimba playing. This instrument has reflects a deep
cultural heritage, evidenced in processes, woods and types of sticks used according to the position of
performance; which varies in the rubber head, with a greater or lesser hardness. To make it, sap from
the rubber tree (castilla elástica) is used from the rubber tree (castilla elástica), and also guatil tree
wood (genipa americana).
Key words: Traditional music - folklore - marimba - Guanacaste marimba - oral tradition

Nelson Niño Vásquez (ed.). Lecturas interdisciplinarias en torno a la música. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, 2016, 287 páginas. ISBN: 978-956-17-0682-8.
Prologado por Luis Merino Montero, este libro recoge once investigaciones de académicos ligados al Instituto de Música de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile). Dividido en cuatro secciones que delimitan áreas de experticia presentes en ese ámbito académico (composición, interpretación, pedagogía y musicología), el aporte ofrece, no obstante, una unidad que se refleja en una impronta común: todos los trabajos refieren a la Región de Valparaíso en distintas épocas, lo que otorga a las reflexiones y resultados un hilo conductor que resulta contundente.

The marimba is the (“traditional”) instrument par excellence in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Its current practices nowadays may range between participative and presentative performances, while its repertoire drifts between popular genres, such as música ranchera and bolero, along with contemporary music and jazz. Its roots and representativeness are such that it would give the impression of being omnipresent in the soundscape of the state. Nonetheless, there are two different kinds of marimba in Chiapas: on the one hand, the marimba doble –chromatic–, which is widely visible and, no doubt, the cultural symbol of the state; and, on the other hand, the marimba sencilla –diatonic–, whose status and visibility are almost non-existent. Whereas the marimba doble has found a niche within ethnomusicology research, the marimba sencilla has been utterly ignored, having been at times even considered to be extinct in the state. Notwithstanding, it continues to be not only present inside the state, but also an essential part of the identity of several social groups. This research focuses on such diatonic marimba tradition. Based on the information gathered during several research stays in the area, it attempts to offer a general scope of the dissemination and functioning, as well as of the various sociocultural interrelations of this musical tradition in the state of Chiapas. At the same time, being the first scientific research that is focused exclusively on this musical tradition, it aims to offer some groundwork for the development of future research which grant access to a deeper understanding of this musical tradition.

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La marimba es el instrumento (“tradicional”) por excelencia en el estado mexicano de Chiapas. Sus prácticas actuales pueden oscilar entre performances participativos y presentacionales, al tiempo que su repertorio navega entre géneros populares, como música ranchera y bolero, y la música contemporánea, así como el jazz. Su arraigo y representatividad son tales que diera la impresión de ser omnipresente en el paisaje sonoro chiapaneco. En Chiapas existen, sin embargo, dos tipos de marimba: por un lado, la marimba doble –cromática–, la cual goza de una amplia visibilidad y es sin duda el símbolo cultural del estado. Y por el otro la marimba sencilla –diatónica–; esta última con un status y una visibilidad casi nulos. Si bien, la marimba doble ha encontrado un lugar en la investigación etnomusicológica, la marimba sencilla ha sido ignorada por completo, siendo en ocasiones considerada extinta en este estado. Sin embargo, esta sigue, no solo estando presente en el estado, sino que también sigue siendo una parte primordial de la identidad de diversos grupos sociales. El siguiente trabajo se encuentra enfocado a esta tradición marimbística diatónica. Basado en la información recabada durante diversas estancias de investigación en la zona, se busca dar una visión general de la diseminación y el funcionamiento, así como de las diversas interrelaciones socioculturales de esta tradición musical en el estado de Chiapas. Al mismo tiempo, al ser este el primer estudio científico enfocado exclusivamente a esta tradición musical, se busca sentar las bases para el desarrollo de futuras investigaciones que nos permitan acceder a un entendimiento profundo de esta tradición musical.