On The Limitations of Instruments

I've been learning to play the Mbira Dzavadzimu from Zimbabwe. At the school where I teach, we use marimbas that are constructed in the style invented at the music school Kwanongoma. These instruments are great for mbira transcriptions, so I've been practicing mbira to get a deeper understanding of the music.

I'm also reading The Soul of Mbira, by Paul F. Berliner. This is a classic ethnomusicology text that talks about the mbira in as it's played in its original context in Zimbabwe. Today I came across this interesting set of passages:

"...the music reflected back to [the performer] by his resonator as he plays seems to be more complex than that which his fingers alone produce. It is, then, real musical feedback that the musician receives from his instrument.

...On the one hand, he is the performer, initiating the music. On the other hand, he continually receives new musical patterns from the mbira as if he were a member of the audience.

...the mbira player initiates the basic pattern of the piece and listens to the complex of parts projected back to him by the mbira.

...In reaction to the mbira's voice, the musician gradually elaborates upon the piece..."


Thinking about the instrument as a partner in performance brought me back to a question I've thought about often, which is that of limitations and creativity.

The first thing that springs to mind is Stravinsky's quote from Poetics of Music:

"My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit."

But I also wonder about the limitations of instruments, and how those limitations shape what music comes out. I heard Jake Schepps say that he believes "every instrument is as hard as you want to make it". On the other hand, Chris Thile says of the mandolin: "there's twice as many strings as a violin -- and half as much sonic capability...but it is a fun little instrument". But he also seems to agree with Jake when he says: "it just seems if creating music is your goal, playing the piano makes it a lot easier, because you’re able to realize so much stuff at the same time. At the same time, I love making music on the mandolin, and I feel like it’s my voice. You can do anything on any instrument. I think the musician is greater than the instrument." It seems like Thile is admitting that the mandolin is limited in comparison to the violin and the piano, but he still believes that it is possible to push the boundaries of an instrument to make the music that you want to create, no matter how impossibly imagined

It seems that Björk takes a different tack on this question. She spoke these words about writing Vespertine: "During that time, everyone was moaning that computers were going to kill me, so I was trying to take a laptop-- which had very bad sound at that point-- and make this whispery, hibernation-winter world where things were frozen anyway. I tried to use that as a poetic thing; you could argue that I worked around the tool." This approach makes a lot of sense to me. Different instruments have different strengths and weaknesses, and using the former efficiently, while trying find a way to make the latter fit your aesthetic could be a very effective approach.

Going back to the mbira, for a moment, it's amazing that an instrument with a limited set of pitches, and basically no chromaticism, can create so much richness and variety. Part of the effect surely comes from the overtones of the mbira keyscomes, but I think it's more because of the amazing interlocking 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12 note patterns that are found in mbira music. Whenever mbira music was written, "the musician was better than the instrument", as Thile said. A fairly simple concept - flat metal keys attached to a resonating board, produces extremely complex music as a result of how it is played.

In all of these examples, the bottom line is that the way you play an instrument can take you beyond its limitations. Whether this is from the techniques used, the aesthetic adopted, or the complexity of the composition being played, the imagination of the performer is what takes the music to the furthest reaches of the possible. Yet, I wonder whether it would be so easy to imagine where to go if there weren't any boundaries to break. Perhaps, as Stravinsky's quote above suggests, it is the obstacles in the "field of action" that enable the musician to visualize - to "auralize" - a new sound world and bring it to reality.