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Musical bow

This article is about the bow as a musical instrument. For the bow used to play another instrument, see Bow (music).
Obu man playing a musical bow in Obubra, Cross River State, Nigeria
An unaccompanied berimbau
The berimbau is a musical bow, originally from Africa, that is now used in Brazil.
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The musical bow (bowstring or string bow, a subset of bar zithers) is a simple string instrument used by a number of African peoples, which is also found in the Americas via the slave trade.[1] It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 10 feet (0.5 to 3 m) long, and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch. It is uncertain if the musical bow developed from the hunting bow, though the San or Bushmen people of the Kalahari Desert do convert their hunting bows to musical use.[2]

Types of bow include mouth-resonated string bow, earth-resonated string bow, and gourd-resonated string bow.[3][2]

  1. ^ "Musical Bow". metmuseum.org.
  2. ^ a b Donald Keith Robotham. "African music Musical bows". britannica.com.
  3. ^ Nzewi, Meki and Nzewi, Odyke (2007). A Contemporary Study of Musical Arts: Informed by African Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Volume 1: The Root: Foundation, p. 108. African Minds. ISBN 9781920051624