A Prodigy's Calling : The Early Musical Biography of Cosmas Magaya, Zimbabwean Mbira Master / Paul F. Berliner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berliner, Paul, Author.

Series:

Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series

Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Magaya, Cosmas.

Mbira music--Zimbabwe--History and criticism.

Mbira music.

Mbira players--Zimbabwe--Biography.

Mbira players.

Mbira--Zimbabwe.

Mbira.

Shona (African people)--Music--History and criticism.

Shona (African people).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (336 p.) : 190 halftones, 4 line drawings

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2024]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The coming-of-age story of a master musician in mid-twentieth century colonial Rhodesia as he learns his community’s most cherished art, all while navigating profound social transformation. Ethnomusicologist Paul F. Berliner has been studying Zimbabwean mbira for more than fifty years. When he first arrived in what was then Rhodesia after the nation declared independence from the United Kingdom, he met Cosmas Magaya, a mbira player who would become his teacher and lifelong collaborator. A Prodigy’s Calling chronicles the early years of Magaya’s life, documenting the master mbira player’s journey from child prodigy to established expert. As a child, Magaya was immersed in mbira music through his father’s work as a healer and spirit medium. As Magaya grew, so too did his world; his performances extended beyond the family compound as his skill and knowledge increased, bringing him into contact with a society fraught with decolonial conflict. Following Magaya’s childhood, readers will learn how his upbringing guided his journey through the community’s social networks and how his early sensibilities, proclivities, and talents shaped his development. At the same time, his deepening engagement with music and the ancestors was affected by overlapping tensions between Shona cosmology and Christian ideology, rural and urban lifestyles, and the escalating African nationalist struggle and the white supremacist state. While Magaya’s story reflects profound social changes in the nation, it is also a story of musical apprenticeship. Readers following Magaya’s discovery of ever finer details in the music’s richly layered patterns will enhance their ability to hear mbira music’s forms, variations, and sonic qualities. Linocut illustrations by South African artist Lucas Bambo bring the narrative to life, and Berliner’s spirited storytelling is accompanied by QR codes that take readers directly to recordings of music as Magaya learns it. Appendices for musicians interested in learning or improving their mbira playing complement the story of Magaya’s early life. Inviting the reader into the very tradition it recounts, the book offers intimate insights into the relationships among music, Shona cosmology, and colonial politics in everyday life.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Preface

Part A. Childhood Lessons, 1953-63

1. Ritual Foundations

2. A Teacher Arrives

3. Musical Foundations

4. Variations and Beats

5. Interlocking

6. Growing Pains

7. Magaya Village

Part B. Teenage Growth, 1964-71

8. The Mbira and the Cross

9. Unseen Hands

10. Advanced Student

11. Early Professional Trials

12. Crisscrossing the Country

13. Keyboards, Tunings, and Resonators

14. Seasoned Players and Connoisseurs

15. Conflicting Practices

Part C. Maestro

16. The Mighty River

17. Invention

18. The Art of Noticing

19. Recognition

20. Coda

Part D. Music Texts

Appendix 1. Guide to Mbira Staff Notation: Representing Mbira Compositions

Appendix 2. Chapter Musical Examples

Appendix 3. Guide to Mbira Box Tablature

Appendix 4. Beginners' Guide to Playing Eight Mbira Compositions

Part E. Supplementary Material

Appendix 5. Descriptions of Audio Examples from Selected Interludes and Chapter 20 (Berliner Early 1970s Field Recordings, Mondoro)

Appendix 6. Rhodesian/Zimbabwean Place Names and Current Names/Spellings

Appendix 7. List of Lucas Bambo's Linocut Prints

Appendix 8. Cosmas's and Musical Associates' Extended-Family and Clan Relationships

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Subject Index

Index of Examples.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2024)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226835167

0226835162

OCLC:

1456500916