Albert Chimedza and the Mbira Centre family have managed to convince mbira players and mbira music connoisseurs in Zimbabwe to observe and rally behind the observation of September as the mbira month. Essentially, this is a month to celebrate everything about the mbira instrument and by extension its music and humanity.
When we hear music, play music or even play a musical instrument, we rarely think of the men and women who make the instrument.
It is with special excitement that in this instalment, i have decided to celebrate Almon Moyo, a Zimbabwean mbira and marimba maker based in Gweru.
I will share my perspectives about a man whose work will ensure that mbira music is available today and in future. Almon Moyo stands head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries in as far as construction of traditional instruments is concerned. Always keen to teach and share his knowledge on his trade, Moyo continues to open his workshop to all aspiring mbira makers. In the past, he has worked with the Midlands State University, Mkoba 3 High School and Jairos Jiri’s Naran Centre, teaching students to make mbira.
Moyo first learnt how to make musical instruments from his father, a renowned drum maker in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe. Moyo later enrolled at the Midlands State University where he studied for a B.Sc Hons Music and Musicology and had the opportunity to learn how to make marimba, nhare and nyunga nyunga mbira at United College of Education (Kwanongoma).
He is one of the two music school graduates who i know can actually make mbira. Currently, Moyo runs Transition Arts, a music construction workshop which he claims he started by using a hammer and an anvil he picked from the National Railways scrap yard in Gweru. The workshop later received funding to buy machinery from the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust in 2009.
Today, Transition Arts is one of the well-equipped mbira and marimba manufacturing workshops in the country.
In 2015, he made his debut presentation at an academic conference when he presented a documentary at the 1st African Music Study Group on how to make mbira. Titled ‘Step by Step Guide to Nyunga-nyunga Making, this easy to follow documentary provides details of how to construct and tune a nyunga nyunga mbira using easily accessible and cheap tools. It is therefore an audio and video manual guide on how to construct and tune a nyunga nyunga mbira. Moyo expertly packs his decade of experience in mbira making in this twenty minutes ethnographic video.
Moyo believes that as our musical sensibilities expand, so should our instruments. He says mbira makers and musicians should be challenged to make mbiras on which they can play any music without worrying about scales. In the past, Moyo made hybrid mbiras some of which were conceptualised by Dr. Perminus Matiure, the current chairperson of the Music and Musicology Department at MSU.
Besides making mbira and marimba which he sells most to schools through his organisation Transition Arts, Moyo, has been involved in facilitating workshops, training programs that deal with impacting musical skills to school going pupils. He can be contacted via his cellphone number +263773744410 or his email address almonmoyo@gmail.com
