In the early 1960s, when Stella Chiweshe was a teenager in the southern African country of Zimbabwe, she wanted to learn mbira -- a thumb piano with metal keys that was used primarily in spirit ...

Identifying faulty drugs or diagnosing kidney problems could one day be as simple as playing an instrument and analyzing the sound. Bioengineer William Grover built his first mbira-inspired sensor ...

Also known as the thumb piano, the mbira is an African musical instrument that has been around in one form or another for at least 3,000 years. Now, however, scientists have developed a new version ...

Sometimes it takes an outsider to fully appreciate a culture’s traditions. In 1972 American musician and budding ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner traveled to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) to study the mbira ...

The mbira, or “thumb piano,” a traditional African instrument, is declining in popularity in big cities, a musician and seller of traditional musical instruments from Cape Town, South Africa told ...

The final concert features kid folk band The Hollow Trees who opens for songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joachim Cooder, who will perform African-inspired Americana on his mbira, an African thumb ...

WILLIAMSTOWN -- When high-ranking Zimbabwean mbira player Forward Kwenda absorbs himself in playing his instrument, the results can be blindingly electric. "Nothing goes through my mind," Kwenda said.

The mbira, or Zimbabwean thumb piano, is a revered ceremonial instrument from Southern Africa with two rows of metal keys mounted on a wooden soundboard. Players use thumb and forefinger to pluck the ...

Listeners who come to traditional African music from the American variety will find it a refreshingly organic experience. The sonorities reflect a variety of instruments both ancient and modern, ...