Cara Stacey, University of Cape Town
It is largely a story of cultural demise and death. Yet the current tale of musical bow instruments is only partly a sad one thanks to a faraway martial art form, and the musical quests of young musicians.
A musical bow is an ancient musical instrument that can be picked, struck or bowed to create sound. Similar to a hunting bow, the musical ones are simple in construction but their acoustic principles are complex: the melodic material created by a bow is made out of overtones emitted from the string.
Imagine a taught string that is plucked or struck in a rhythmic pattern. We hear a note but at the same time, a series of quieter overtones emerge and a skillful player can manipulate these to create music. Often these subtle sounds are amplified with a container of sorts - a calabash, metal tin, or sometimes the player's own mouth.
It's an ephemeral music made from grasses, sticks, and animal gut that ultimately disintegrate with time.
Rural instruments
Southern Africa is home to a myriad of musical bow variations but in urban areas the instruments are rarely seen or heard. The most commonly played bows are the Xhosa umrhubhe mouthbow and uhadi struck bows of the Eastern Cape and Cape Town. The makhoyana gourd-resonated bow is from KwaZulu-Natal.
In Swaziland one encounters the makhoyane - a cousin of the Zulu instrument. The Xitende is a gourd-resonated bow of southern Mozambique. The elusive and beautiful lesiba comes from Lesotho.
There are numerous virtuosic bow players alive and well, including South Africans like Madosini, Mantombi Matotiyane, Bavikile Ngema and the Ngqoko Cultural Group, as well as my own former teacher Dizu Plaatjies. From Mozambique there is Matchume Zango.
But there are fears that many musical bows are slowly but surely becoming extinct; makers and players are not getting any younger. This was in the back of some minds when the University of KwaZulu-Natal hosted the inaugural International Bow Music Conference in early 2016.
The conference brought together leading scholars and performers from across southern Africa, South America, the US, India and beyond. Many of the papers presented were rooted in southern African traditions like the umrhubhe, uhadi, the makhoyane and the chipendani from Zimbabwe.
The conference was also a chance for the local researchers to get to know the research surrounding the Brazilian berimbau bow of Capoeira fame and the opportunity to hear many new compositional approaches.