Ikembe

The ikembe is a member of the plucked idiophones (Hornbostel–Sachs 122.1). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the ikembe makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the ikembe belongs to the plucked idiophones (lamellophones): flexible tongues or lamellae are plucked – the mbira, kalimba, music box and jaw harp.

More broadly it is one of the idiophones, where the solid body of the instrument itself vibrates, without strings or a stretched membrane.

Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.

From Wikipedia

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 imba means song. Kuimba means to sing, as in the phrase "nitakwenda kuimba" (I go to sing). Swahili, as in many languages, uses a type of binomial nomenclature to create new words to describe unfamiliar or new objects, occurrences or people, based on existing words or concepts. By combining part of the word for mother = ma with the word for song = imba using r as a connector we come up with the word marimba = mother of song. We can then extrapolate from the research of A.M. Jones, quoted by Osborne that ka = small combined with the word imba = song should mean little mother of song.