Routledge

Chapter Notes

Chapter 8 Labor Migration: Maskanda

  • Maskanda is a form of Zulu migrant performance performed primarily with voice and guitar (but also less frequently with concertina, violin, and piano accordion).
  • The guitar was probably introduced to South Africa in the late 19th century by the Portuegese. (Note: Mozambique, a country neighboring South Africa in the north-east was for many decades a Portuegese colony).
  • Early interaction with by black South Africans the guitar probably occurred in the late 19th century in rural rather than urban areas.
  • The word maskanda probably derives from the Afrikaans word for musician, musikant.
  • In KwaZulu Natal, black people called all European music imusic, while all forms of traditional Zulu performance were called ngoma.

Maskanda was probably a genre associated with Afrikaans farmers. We can understand the birth of maskanda as the outcome of the following historical process:

  1. European music
  2. translated into Afrikaans cultural practices
  3. borrowed and transformed by Zulu-speaking musicians into a musical language more consistent with their own.

The musical bow

The Nguni musical bow forms the foundation of much maskanda performance. The musical bow can generally produce between two and three fundamentals. Each fundamental produces a rich harmonic spectrum (or series of overtones). The performer is able to amplify specific overtones and thus create melodies through various overtones of each harmonic complex tone, and through the shifting of the fundamental. Overtones are amplified through through two kinds of chambers: egourd resonators, or the mouth of the performer. The most prominent overtones of any given fundamental sound a third and a fifth two octaves above the fundamental. In this way, triads are formed.

Usually the two main fundamentals of the musical bow are a whole-tone apart, with an additional (third) fundamental sounding a fourth above the lowest fundamental. For example: D, E, G. While the overtone that sounds a third (and two octaves) above any fundamental is often audible, the overtone that sounds a fifth (and two octaves) above a fundamental is usually more audible. The three fundamentals D, E, and G, and the fifth above each of these fundamentals results in a pentatonic scale: D, E, G, A, B.

This pentatonic scale, and the three fundamentals that it results from, forms the basis of maskanda guitar and vocal music.

Maskanda guitar technique:
  • Usually guitars used in maskanda have steel (and not nylon) strings to produce a more percussive sound.
  • A plectrum (called ikati) is often used.
  • There are two main techniques: ukuvamba (strumming chords percussively) and ukupika (a finger-picking style from north of South Africa).
  • Various styles of chuning are used. Commonly, standard guitar tuning is used with the high E (on the first strong of the guitar) tuned down to a D.
  • Often young boys beginning on smaller guitars and only later play full-sized instruments.
  • In ukupika, the thumb plays the lower strings (amadoda, the Zulu word for ‘men’) and the other fingers in the right hand (mainy the index finger) plays a melody on the upper strings (amatombazane, the Zulu word for ‘women’). The vocalist usually sings in unison, near unison, or heterphonically, with the melody played on the upper strings.
Social issues relating to maskanda performance:
  • Maskanda developed in some ways from imbongi (traditional Zulu sung-poetry). The main difference between the two is the use of guitar (and other instruments) in maskanda.
  • Musicians often sing self-praises.
  • Musicians often sing political or social satire.
  • Musicians often use their musican skills to court women.
  • Some maskanda musicians (such as Thami Vilakazi) sing parable-like verses about their trickster activities.
  • Although maskanda musicians are respected in a certain sense, they are often unemployed vagrants and are thus viewed with suspicion by their communities.
  • In recent years, several female maskanda musicians have achieved considerable success.
  • There is a strong sense of ambivalence in the relationship between maskanda and urban society. On the one hand, we have seen that Zulu musicians probably first learned about the guitar in rural areas (and associated the instrument with Afrikaans farmers). On the other hand, however, the guitar is often associated with urbanity, drunkness, and lewdness. Also, while maskanda musicians are often migrant workers and even city slickers, their music reflects the tension between living in two worlds. Maskanda musicians may glorify urban life, but more often criticize urbanity (and modernity), and especially the activities of urban women.