A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

s that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician depresses the free end of a plate with a finger or fingernail, and then allows the finger to slip off, the released plate vibrates. An instrument may have a single tongue (such as a Jew's harp) or a series of multiple tongues (such as a

mbira Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

thumb piano). Linguaphone comes from the Latin root ''lingua'' meaning "tongue", (i.e., a long thin plate that is fixed only at one end). lamellophone comes from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ' for "small metal plate", and the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''phonē'' for "sound, voice". The lamellophones constitute category 12 in the

Hornbostel–Sachs Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the in 1914. An English translation was published in the '' Galpin Society Jo ...

system for classifying musical instruments, plucked

idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electrophones) ...

s. There are two main categories of plucked idiophones, those that are in the form of a frame (121) and those that are in the form of a comb (122). According to

Sachs Sachs is a German surname, meaning "man from Saxony". Sachs is a common surname among Ashkenazi Jews from Saxony, in the United States sometimes adopted in the variant Zaks, supposedly in reference to the Hebrew phrase ''Zera Kodesh Shemo'' (ZaKS), ...

African lamellophones

A large number of lamellophones originate in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, where they are known under different names including ''

'', ''sanza'', ''

kisanji Kisanji is the name given to the lamellaphone of the Ngala-speaking people of western DR Congo and eastern Congo Republic. It is also known as Ikembe, Chisanji, Eleke or sanza, and is played by holding the instrument in both hands and pluckin ...

'', ''

likembe Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

'', ''

kalimba Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...

'', and '' kongoma''. They play a role in southeast

African Music Given the vastness of the African continent, its music is diverse, with regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres amapiano, Jùjú, Fuji, Afrobeat, Highlife, Makossa, Kizomba, and others. The ...

. They were reported as early as the 16th century, but there is no doubt they have a much longer history. The Caribbean

marímbula The marímbula () is a plucked box musical instrument of the Caribbean. In Cuba it is common in the changüí genre, as well as old styles of son. In Mexico, where it is known as marimbol is played in son jarocho; in the Dominican Republic, wh ...

is also of this family. The marímbula can be seen as a bass variant of the mbira and is sometimes used in hip hop music. In most cases the tongues are divided in two playing halves with the lowest notes in the centre; from there to the left and to the right each tongue is tuned higher than the previous one. The tongues may also be arranged in a linear arrangement in the manner of a

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. Tongues may be made small enough to play with individual fingers, hence the colloquial name "thumb piano". (Although some instruments, like the ''Mbira'', have an additional rows of tongues, in which case not just the thumbs are used for plucking.) Some conjecture that African lamellophones were derived from

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

s and

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

s. However, similar instruments have been found elsewhere; for example, the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

s of

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

play wooden and metallic lamellophones with a single tongue. Lamellophones may be made with or without

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator ...

s. There are also

electric lamellophones A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musicia ...

with an additional pickup.

Electric lamellophones

Electric lamellophones have been electrified with an

electro-magnetic pickup A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by electric instrument, musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is instr ...

(like on electric guitars) or contact

piezo pickup A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instru ...

Piezo pickup lamellophones

There is a distinct difference between the piezo and the electro-magnetic pickup. Most electric lamellophones feature piezo pickups. The piezo sound contains more treble and has more problems with

feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...

when amplified ( distorted) heavily.

Lucinda Ellison Lucinda may refer to: * Lucinda (given name), people with the given name ''Lucinda'' * Lucinda, Queensland, a town in Australia * ''Lucinda (steam yacht)'', a steam yacht of the Queensland Government * ''Lucinda'' (novel), a novel by P. D. Manvill ...

produces a wide range of her Embiras, which are solid body electric

s with piezo pickups — a design first conceived in 1981 and finalised in 1996.

David Bellinger David C. Bellinger is professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is also a Senior Research Associate in Neurology and a Senior Associate in Psyc ...

has been making ekalimbas -

s with piezo pickups - for 20 years. The

Array Mbira The Array mbira is a handcrafted modern musical instrument with a unique harp- or bell-like sound. It is made in the United States by its inventor Bill Wesley and manufactured by Wesley with Patrick Hadley in San Diego, California, United States ...

is a lamellophone with an alternate tine configuration. It is electrified by the addition of a 2-channel stereo piezo cable pickup system. A special solid-body Array mbira exists.

Electro-magnetic lamellophones

Ernst Zacharias Ernst Zacharias (21 June 1924 – 6 July 2020) was a German musician and engineer. In the 1950s and 1960s, he invented various electro-mechanical musical instruments for the German musical instrument manufacturer Hohner, including the Cembalet, th ...

created a series of electric lamellophones created in the 1960s for

Hohner Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner (1833–1902). The roots of the Hohner firm are in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg. Since its foundation, and though known ...

. These instruments were based on the reeds made by Hohner (already employed in accordions, concertinas, melodicas and harmonicas). These instruments were the

Pianet The Hohner Pianet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany and designed by Ernst Zacharias. The Pianet was a variant of his earlier reed-based Hohner electric piano, the Cembalet, which, like ...

(plucked by a foam pad), the

Cembalet The Cembalet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the late-1950s to the late 1960s. The designer of the Cembalet was Ernst Zacharias. The Cembalet was a reed-based electric piano i ...

(plucked by a rubber pad) and the

Guitaret The Guitaret is an electric lamellophones, electric lamellophone made by Hohner and invented by Ernst Zacharias, in 1963. Zacharias also invented similar instruments like the Pianet, Cembalet and the Clavinet. The instrument itself was not popular ...

(plucked by fingers). The idea of a struck reed tongue had been pioneered by the Alexandre brothers in their "Orgues expressifs" (

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

s) in the 19th century, where they were called percussion stops. The

Space Harp The space harp, also known as a frankiphone, is an electrified lamellophone invented by Phil Cohran as part of a musicological experiment exploring his African roots. He named it after his mother, Frankie. It was first recorded during his tenure wit ...

, or Frankiphone (designed, built and played by

Phil Cohran Kelan Phil Cohran (May 8, 1927 June 28, 2017) was a jazz musician. He was best known for playing trumpet in the Sun Ra Arkestra in Chicago from 1959 to 1961, and for his involvement in the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Crea ...

), is a famous instance of an electric lamellophone. A range of other mbiras and

s have been created by contemporary instrument makers. The African band Konono No.1 uses custom-built electric kalimbas with electro-magnetic pickups.

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

's Jason Sanford makes electric thumb pianos from scrap in a similar tradition and

Yuri Landman Yuri Landman (born 1 February 1973) is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japan ...

has made

12-TET Twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 ( ≈ 1.05946). That resultin ...

bass kalimbas and metal

tongue drum A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of the name, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one sli ...

Schaeffner's classification

Flexible or Plucked idiophones - Soinuenea

Schaeffner's musical instrument classification scheme has a post-prominent place for the linguaphones (lamellophones) at the second highest level of classification. In 1932, Andre Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was "exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments" artomi, p. 176 Schaeffner's system has only two top-level categories denoted by Roman numerals (Schaeffner, A.: ''Origine des instruments de musique'', pp. 371–377.): *I: instruments that make sound from vibrating solids; **IA Solids not susceptibles of tension (equivalent to a big part of Hornbostel & Sachs

s); **IB Flexible solids (equivalent to mainly linguaphones); **IC Tensionable solids (equivalent to both

membranophone A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. ...

s and

chordophone String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

s); *II: instruments that make sound from vibrating air (

aerophone An aerophone () is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instru ...

s).

List of lamellophones

In the form of a frame (121)

The lamellae vibrate within a frame or hoop 121.1 Clack idiophones or Cricri - The lamella is carved in the surface of a fruit shell, which serves as resonator. Also known as galip nut snapper.Fischer, Hans (1983/1986). ''Sound-producing Instruments in Oceania'', p.52. Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. ASIN: B0010S35VW. 121.2 Guimbardes and jaw harps - The lamella is mounted in a rod- or plaque-shaped frame and depends on the player's mouth cavity for resonance. :121.21 Idioglot guimbardes - The lamella is of one substance with the frame of the instrument. :*

Đàn môi Derived from the mouth harp of the Hmong people, Đàn môi (: ''Đàn môi'', "lip lute") is the Vietnamese name of a traditional musical instrument widely used in minority ethnic groups in Vietnam (including the Jrai " Rang Leh"Đào, Huy Qu ...

:121.22 Heteroglot guimbardes - The lamella is attached to the frame. ::121.221 Individual heteroglot guimbardes. ::* Jew's harp ::*

Morsing The morsing (also mukharshanku, mourching, morching or morchang; Sanskrit: दंत वाद्यन्तरात्मसत्रस्य, Telugu: మోర్సింగ్, Kannada: ಮೋರ್ಸಿಂಗ್, Rajasthani: मोर� ...

::121.222 Sets of heteroglot guimbardes. ::*

Kouxian ''Kouxian'' () is a general Chinese term for any variety of jaw harp. The jaw harp is a plucked idiophone in which the lamella is mounted in a small frame, and the player's open mouth serves as a resonance chamber. Chinese jaw harps may comp ...

File:Bass Dan Moi.jpg, (121.21)

,Vietnam. Instrument carved from a single piece of bamboo. file:Murchunga.jpg, (121.221) Murchunga, Nepal File:5 Leaf Kouxian.jpg, (121.222) A

, played by plucking the ends in front of the oral cavity. The lamellae resonate to produce sound.

In the form of a comb (122)

Whale drum (from Emil Richards Collection)

The lamellae are tied to a board or cut out from a board like the teeth of a comb. 122.1 With laced on lamellae. *

Array mbira The Array mbira is a handcrafted modern musical instrument with a unique harp- or bell-like sound. It is made in the United States by its inventor Bill Wesley and manufactured by Wesley with Patrick Hadley in San Diego, California, United States ...

Agidigbo The ''agidigbo'' or ‘’’molo’’’ is a large traditional plucked lamellophone thumb piano used by the Yoruba people of Nigeria to play apala music. It is a box, big enough to sit on the musician’s lap, with 4 to 5 strips of metal set ...

(Nigeria) * Eleke *

Ikembe Ikembe, is a type of musical instrument of the lamellaphone group, common amongst the people of Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo. The instrument consists of several iron lamellae, fixed to a rectangular wooden soundbox. In Swahili the word imb ...

*Insimbi *

Kalimba Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...

* Kasayi *

Kisanji Kisanji is the name given to the lamellaphone of the Ngala-speaking people of western DR Congo and eastern Congo Republic. It is also known as Ikembe, Chisanji, Eleke or sanza, and is played by holding the instrument in both hands and pluckin ...

Likembe Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

*Lukembe (Congo and

Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...

) *Maduimba *

Malimbe The malimbe is a type of xylophone from the Congo which is described as having both male and female counterparts; the former has 15 wooden bars, the latter has nine. "Malimbe" also refers to a lamellaphone or mbira type instrument amongst the ...

Marímbula The marímbula () is a plucked box musical instrument of the Caribbean. In Cuba it is common in the changüí genre, as well as old styles of son. In Mexico, where it is known as marimbol is played in son jarocho; in the Dominican Republic, wh ...

- Caribbean thumb piano *

Mbira Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

**Chisanza mbira (

Elisabethville Lubumbashi (former names: (French), (Dutch)) is the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia. The capital and principal city of the Haut-Katanga ...

) **Kalimba mbira (Southern Rhodesia) **Njara mbira (Southern Rhodesia) **Shona mbira (Southern Rhodesia) *Oopoochawa * Prempensua (Ghana) *

Thumb piano Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...

* Tom (Ethiopia) * Sanza/Sansa (Equatorial Africa and West Africa) *

Whale Drum A steel tongue drum, tank drum, or hank drum is a round steel slit/tongue drum in the Idiophone family originally fashioned from a propane cylinder. Description A steel tongue drum can be made from an empty (often 20lb) propane tank. The tank is ...

* Zimbabwean Marimba 122.11 Without resonator. 122.12 With resonator. 122.2 With cut-out lamellae *

Comb A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the hair to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since prehistoric times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating ba ...

* Mechanical music box *

Slit drum A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of the name, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit ...

* Steel tongue drum *

Teponaztli A teponaztli is a type of slit drum used in central Mexico by the Aztecs and related cultures. Structure Teponaztli are made of hollow hardwood logs, often fire-hardened. Like most slit drums, teponaztlis have two slits on their topside, cut ...

References

Gerhard Kubik Gerhard Kubik (born 10 December 1934) is an Austrian music ethnologist from Vienna. He studied ethnology, musicology and African languages at the University of Vienna. He published his doctoral dissertation in 1971 and achieved habilitation in 1 ...

: "Lamellophone", in: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (ed. Stanley Sadie). Macmillan Publishers, London, 1981 ;Specific

External links

Lamellophone players list
from N. Scott Robinson site * an
"Idiophone", ''OnMusic Dictionary''
(accessed 24 May 2020). * {{Authority control * African musical instruments Lists of percussion instruments Lists of musical instruments by Hornbostel–Sachs number de:Lamellophon