The Array Mbira is a modern instrument coming down from African Thumb piano class/family, usually played by the thumbs and sometimes fingers commonly using metal tines. In East African music the mbira (also lkembe) is a gourd- resonated thumb piano, a musical instrument consisting of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached fitted into a resonator. ...

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 way to rearrange the pattern by which the notes are positioned on 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. Mbira Dzavadzimu in deze (top), Mbira Nyunga Nyunga (bottom), Hosho (bottom left). ... In mathematics, an isomorphism (in Greek isos = equal and morphe = shape) is a kind of interesting mapping between objects. ... In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp symbols or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes (for example, the white notes on a piano keyboard) unless otherwise altered with...

The Array Mbira is played by Ry Cooder (Buena Vista Social Club and Talking Timbuktu), Emil Richards, Pharaoh Sanders, Mileece, Shannon Terry, Imogen Heap. Ryland Ry Peter Cooder (born on March 15, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer and composer, known for his slide guitar work, his interest in the American roots music and, more recently, for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries. ... The Buena Vista Social Club was the name of a members-only music club in Havana, Cuba that was at its height during the 1940s. ... Talking Timbuktu is the 1994, Grammy award-winning collaboration between Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure and American guitarist/producer Ry Cooder. ... Emil Richards is a percussionist who plays a variety of different percussive instruments. ... Reggie Workman, Pharoah Sanders, and Idris Muhammad, c. ... Imogen Heap (born December 9, 1977) is a Grammy-nominated English singer-songwriter from Essex, most famous for her work as part of Frou Frou and for her 2005 solo record Speak for Yourself. ...

External links

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