African Thumb Piano Tuning

by James Robert Hester

Sep 16, 2017

In Afro-American Folksongs, published in 1913, ,Henry E. Krehbiel describes an African instrument called a zanze as follows:

"The zanze is a small sound-box...hollowed out in the form of a round gourd to the upper side of which, over a bridge, are tightly affixed a series of wooden or metal tongues of different lengths. The tongues are snapped with the thumbs...and give out a most agreeable sound. I find out no records in the accounts of travellers as to any systematic tuning of the instrument, but a specimen from Zululand in my possession is accurately tuned to the notes of the pentatonic scale.with the addition of two erratic tones side-by-side in the middle of the instrument..." [Afro-American Folksongs, p. 68]

Krehbiel continues at another opening:

"I have mentioned a Zulu zanze which is in my possession--. It has pentatonic tuning down to two middle tongues, which emit strangely aberrant tones. The key is D-flat. The tongues on one side emit the descending order, D-flat, E-flat and B-flat; on the other B-flat, F, D-flat and A-flat....Between the right and left rows of tongues lie the two which give out the strange, wild notes A and B." [Afro-American Folksongs, p. 74]

The instrument Krehbiel describes sounds like a thumb piano in today's terms. Other than saying the instrument came from Zululand, he provides no other idea of its origin. Assuming the instrument is authentic, the question came to me as to whether the tuning he describes, especially the aberrant notes, belong to a natural scale. Krehbiel assumes that the tuning is diatonic. I'm not sure that is a good assumption for a genuine folk instrument. For one thing, the pentatonic tuning could as well result from the gaps in a natural scale.

Assuming Krehbiel's description of the pitches is accurate, I transposed them down a half step to C and fitted them to what appears to be an approximation of a natural scale. Does anyone in OMN have a take on this?

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    James Robert Hester



    Aindrias Hirt said:
    Hi.

    I’ve got some time to look at this now. The hard part is deliberately making yourself ignorant (become a child) in order to understand a different system. Academics are loathe to do this since their value is in what they know, not in what they don’t know. It takes a great deal of courage and sacrifice to deliberately wipe away your understanding of things in order to see a different way of looking at the world. However, if it’s worthwhile, it’s worth the pain.

    I’ll take a look at this in the next few weeks, but it will take a lot of thought and confusion to find the pattern inherent in the music. So I’ll fail a lot. That’s just the nature of it. Thanks for the link.

    Andy

    Hi Andy,

    I don't know if you found any remnants of the natural scale in any African tunes. I have your summary instructions for screening tunes that I plan to apply to apply to the tunes in Slave Songs of the United States. I approach the task with trepidation.

    Bob Hester

    May 14, 2018

  • up

    James Robert Hester

    Andy,

    I did more thinking about Krehbiel's African thumb piano (zanze) tuning as described in Afro-American Folksongs. Krehbiel's description of the instrument and its tuning is found on pp. 74-76 of his book. He also provides a pentatonic scale without two "aberrant" notes on p. 61. The attached score contains four measures that sum up my thoughts to date. I am keen to know what you think. The first measure in the score is Krehbiel's pentatonic scale expressed in ascending, rather than descending, order. I added the two "aberrant" notes (A natural and B natural) to Krehbiel's scale in the second measure. The third measure is the full scale transposed down a half step from Db to C for convenience. Finally, I tried to match up the partials of a natural scale produced by some sort of horn with the tones of the thumb piano. As you can see, all the tones except A natural are partials. The "aberrant" tones (Ab and Bb transposed) being the 13th and 14th partials. Does any of this make sense to you?Zanze%20Tuning.jpg

    Jun 2, 2018

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    James Robert Hester

    Andy,

    Here's an interesting tidbit. Attached is a version of O're the Crossing from Slave Songs of the United States (No. 93). William Allen, the chief editor of Slave Songs, opines, for undisclosed reasons, that, "O're the Crossing" may very well be purely African in origin. I transposed the attachment from the original key of Ab to C, and as you see, the transposition contains the same "aberrant" notes Ab and Bb as the transposed version of Ore%20the%20Crossing.jpgKrehbiel's zanze.

    Jun 2, 2018