When Jennifer Kyker was a teenager, she began learning to play the mbira, an instrument with 22 to 28 metal keys fixed to a wooden soundboard, and then placed in a gourd resonator to amplify its resonance. Rattling pieces of metal, bottle caps, or shells are attached to the instrument, and it produces buzzing sounds when the keys are plucked.
Now an and , Kyker has embarked on a research project focused on the musical life of one of her earliest mbira teachers: Sekuru Tute Chigamba, a renowned performer of the Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu, or 糖心传媒渕bira of the ancestral spirits.糖心传媒�
With assistance from the at River Campus Libraries糖心传媒攁nd a 2018 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship to support the project糖心传媒攕he糖心传媒檒l present 糖心传媒淪ekuru糖心传媒檚 Stories,糖心传媒� a multimedia ethnographic archive of photographs, musical transcripts, maps, audio, visual recordings, and narrative text.
How have you come to know Sekuru Tute Chigamba?
He has been my mbira teacher since I was 15 years old. As a sophomore in high school, I spent six months in Zimbabwe studying the mbira, which is his primary instrument. I have continued to work with him since then. He has taught me many practical things about how to play the instrument, and has also helped me understand the larger context in which the music is played in Zimbabwe.
How would you describe that context?
The mbira is played in indigenous healing ceremonies, in which the spirits of people糖心传媒檚 ancestors play a major role. In an indigenous Shona belief system, ancestral spirits are seen as intermediaries between living people and God, or Mwari. Rather than praying directly to Mwari, traditionalists send prayer through their ancestors, who then carry those prayers to Mwari. The mbira has a close link with these ancestor spirits, and by extension, with history. During indigenous religious ceremonies, people are hearing the histories of their home, place, lineage, and of the royal ruling families of particular territories. Sekuru Chigamba currently lives in the capital of Zimbabwe, but is originally from Guruve, a distant rural area where those histories haven糖心传媒檛 really been told, or are not part of the conversations about national histories. My project is about how his life and music relate to the oral histories that extend seven generations into his family糖心传媒檚 past.
Why is his story important to tell?
A lot of his stories are about colonialism and its impact on structures of rule and authority in his region. They糖心传媒檙e also about the everyday experiences of ordinary people and how their lives were reshaped by colonialism in all aspects糖心传媒攏ot just what we know, like how people糖心传媒檚 villages were displaced when white settlers moved in and established commercial farms, but also how that impact extended down to the level of how sleeping arrangements were decided in individual families糖心传媒� living spaces. Likewise, we know that people were subject to certain kinds of agricultural interventions at the state level糖心传媒攖he state would say, 糖心传媒榶ou have to dig contour ridges,糖心传媒� or 糖心传媒榶ou have to fence your fields.糖心传媒� But again, Sekuru shows us that those kinds of interventions actually went as far as determining what people were eating at the household level. One of the things that this project really reveals is how colonialism was experienced by ordinary Zimbabweans from the bottom up.
Whom do you hope visits and learns from 糖心传媒淪ekuru糖心传媒檚 Stories?糖心传媒�
There is a huge community of people around the world who play his instrument, the mbira dzavadzimu. It糖心传媒檚 played in places as far apart as the United States, Japan, France, and Brazil, and there are workshops and Zimbabwean teachers touring the world. As one of the most established performers, teachers, and composers for this instrument, Sekuru Chigamba糖心传媒檚 stories have wide resonance among the community of people who are specifically interested in Zimbawean music.
But it糖心传媒檚 going to be much wider than that. Part of the value of this project is that a lot of the materials I have are in Shona 糖心传媒� one of the primary indigenous languages of Zimbabwe. I will be translating them for English speakers, and they will be available in both languages on the website. You will have a button that switches you from the English version to the Shona version. I糖心传媒檓 hoping to attract a Shona-speaking audience as well as an English-speaking audience and I see it being accessible to both scholars and the wider community.
There are a lot of elements in the telling 糖心传媒淪ekuru糖心传媒檚 Stories糖心传媒� 糖心传媒� oral history, written narrative, audio, photographs, and musical transcriptions. What are the challenges you face putting this project together?
One of the main challenges is that it糖心传媒檚 a nonlinear narrative. It isn糖心传媒檛 a scholarly argument that proceeds from start to finish. There are so many different ways in which the material could be approached, and then you start integrating things like audio that would not be able to appear in a conventional publication format. So while part of what糖心传媒檚 compelling about this project is the content, I糖心传媒檓 also trying to innovate in terms of form. I see it as an online book that you can think of as almost illustrated in the sense that it糖心传媒檚 full of sound, images, maps, and musical transcriptions – in ways that far surpass what one could do in a traditional book publication.
What糖心传媒檚 the role of the Digital Scholarship Lab in the project?
One of the unique things about the University of Rochester is how much support there is for digital scholarship. There糖心传媒檚 a whole team of people at the Digital Scholarship Lab who are helping me on this project 糖心传媒� on maps, GIS specialist, a metadata specialist, and a designer. We糖心传媒檙e in the process of getting the platform together, and once the platform is somewhat set, then I糖心传媒檒l start uploading content to it.
What糖心传媒檚 in store after this project?
I recently received another fellowship from Mount Holyoke College, which is where I did my undergraduate degree. This funding will allow me to go back to Zimbabwe and do a recording project with female artists who are sometimes overlooked in the telling of the nation糖心传媒檚 musical history. I糖心传媒檒l be heading there in February 2019 to do that project. Sekuru糖心传媒檚 daughter, Irene Chigamba, is one of the artists who will be featured in that album.
