TRUST Mutekwa, popularly known as Ticha Muzavazi in arts circles, is set to launch his debut mbira instructional book titled Ticha Muzavazi’s Nhunga Mbira Handbook: An Enthralling Exploration of the 15-Key Mbira, at the Alliance Françoise in Harare this Saturday.
BY TINASHE MUCHURI
Muzavazi is known for his abstract poetry published in four Shona anthologies Ngoma Yekwedu (1998), Jakwara reNhetembo (2008), Mudengu Munei (2010) and Shoko Harivhikwi (2012).
“We used to listen to mbira music on (the then) Radio 2, now Radio Zimbabwe,” he recalled.
“Mbira music would come to tone down the pace of rhumba music.”
In 1998, when he enrolled at Morgenster Teachers College for a Diploma in Education, his taste for the mbira instrument and music changed.
“I felt I wanted to play an instrument, a portable one, that is not a guitar. This was the time I begun to see people like Chiwoniso Maraire, Adam Chisvo and Andy Brown (all late) playing mbira instrument on television. I fell in love with mbira because of its portability,” Muzavazi said.
He discovered a dearth of literature on mbira and that players were relying on the notes by late mbira playing and teaching legend, Dumi Maraire.
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“I discovered that at all colleges in the country, only Dumi Maraire’s mbira playing notes were being used. But every time I visited teachers of mbira music and sample my mbira, they would take notes,” Muzavazi said.
At primary school, he had been part of the mbira club and when the Tashinga Chipawo Centre was re-opened in Tafara, it accommodated the club.
Over the years, he said, he kept on developing the mbira playing notes, with a desire to make the instrument’s playing easy.
It was after discovering that there was less content on mbira playing his desire to write an instructional mbira plying book grew.
The book comprises 100 lessons and is accompanied by 85 videos, which a learner can access online.
He said the book would be translated into French and Portuguese.
