Impressions from the Rushinga Hera recording project

After a delay of several weeks, Kuda Samora Nyaruwabvu and Tatenda Cangola began their journey to Nyanhewe Village on August 30th and finished their work there yesterday. The recordings took place at the Nyamukuvhengu family homestead.

James Kamwaza was initially unavailable and could only join after a few days. Meanwhile, his playing partner Misheck Nyamukuvhengu took on the role of local coordinator for everyone involved. Currently, many ceremonies are taking place, for which the musicians are indispensable, so this was no easy task, especially since the recordings had to take place primarily at night.

For Samora and Tatenda, this meant little sleep, especially since there was still a lot of experimentation to be done.

Our original plan was to first record each song as a group, and then have each musician re-record the individual tracks (not identically, but in a sufficiently similar way) and then mix the higher-quality individual tracks together to create the song.

Unfortunately, this approach proved difficult for various reasons (availability of musicians, tightness of group recordings, tuning), so Samora eventually switched to recording the songs track by track, occasionally having the same musician play additional parts on the same instrument.

I have not yet receiced the individual umcompressed tracks, Samora sent me a couple of on-the-fly mixes of the raw tracks.

To my great delight, Ambuya Emma (b. 1937), ​​the widow of the well-known instrument maker and hera player Josam Nyamukuvhengu (with whom Andrew Tracey had already worked extensively), was still in good health and at the top of her game, contributing the wonderful singing and yodeling parts that make Matepe music complete.

Musicians involved in the recordings

Hera players

Misheck Nyamukuvhengu
James Kamwaza
Benero Mugomeza

Singers

Ambuya Emma Nyamukuvhengu
Violet Nyamukuvhengu
Eustina Nyamukuvhengu
Febi Gomo

Drummers

Tsene Nyakudanga
James Kamwaza