Array mbira

The array mbira is a meticulously hand crafted modern musical instrument, made in the USA by its inventor Bill Wesley and skilled artisan and innovator Patrick Hadley. It's directly related to the African mbira thumb piano which is native to Zimbabwe and is technically part of the lamellaphone family. These types of instruments are generally played with the thumbs and sometimes the fingers.

The array mbira is a radical redesign of the African mbira. The notes of the array mbira are arranged according to the array system, invented in the United States by inventor/performer/author Bill Wesley. The array system is a specific way of arranging musical notes into a pattern that may be applied to a wide variety of musical instruments, and is both isomorphic and unimorphic (meaning that all the notes of any given key signature will be unified into a single area that excludes notes outside that key signature). There is only one unimorphic planar system, and that is the system employed on the array mbira.

The array mbira is played by a number of popular musicians, including Ry Cooder (Buena Vista Social Club and Talking Timbuktu), Emil Richards, Pharoah Sanders, Mileece, Shannon Terry, and Imogen Heap.

External links

*http://www.thearraymbira.com - official webpage of modern producer of instrument