Chopi Timbila Music

The Chopi are a people from Mozambique. Their music is played by orchestras of broad-keyed xylophones called timbila. The timbila come in many sizes covering the ranges from soprano to contrabass. The music can be quite complicated and dense, often featuring rhythms of 3 against 4, and a high level of syncopation.

The Chopi timbila are typically tuned to what Hugh Tracey calls a "minor whole-tone scale". What is meant by this phrase is that the degrees of the scale are all the same distance apart, more or less, so that the octave is divided into 7 equal parts, instead of the twelve that Western ears are used to.

The following examples are from the book Chopi Musicians: Their Music, Poetry, and Instruments by Hugh Tracey. The scale I used to render these pieces is C dorian. This seems to my ear to be a inoffensive substitute for the minor whole-tone scale.

Lavanani Micangasika.

Hinganyengisa Masingita.