Regard sur la Collection des Sanza de L'Institut des Musees Nationaux du Zaire

Abstract

Sanza, often translated as "thumb piano", is one of the important traditional musical instruments in Africa. It is neither a percussion nor a wind instrument, and because of this ambiguity it has been a problem to the Western ethnomusicologists who are interested in the classification of musical instruments. The authors describe the forms, decorations, raw materials and playing techniques of various sanzas, based on the materials stored at the National Museum of Zaire, and attempt to classify them, mainly according to the type of resonance box. Also pointed out in this paper is the importance of the study of musical instruments for better understanding of traditional society.