Njari

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Njari layouts
• Reference key
• Notations
• Pros and cons of different counting schemes

Introduction

Njari layouts

Despite that variance, key layouts are generally very regular and symmetric, at least conceptually - it may not always be obvious to the eye. Pitches in all manuals rise from the center to the outer keys without gaps in the scale, occasional exceptions only at the lower end of the bass manual.

Two clusters of njari layouts can be distinguished by the presence of the left middle manual, called LT (left thumb) in the notations.

• Njari without the LT manual generally feature complete octaves (seven or more consecutive keys) in the upper left and right manuals.
  Their layout very much resembles the karimba, which just has the bass keys arranged in a more condensed way to make them accessible to the right thumb.
• Njari with the LT manual often come with less than seven key in the upper manuals. Sometimes the upper left and right hand sides cover different parts of the 7-key octave space (one side always starts an octave above the reference key).
  Pairs of keys in the upper and middle ranks are often arranged in close proximity to facilitate "strumming" octaves with the thumbs - sometimes even three at once with a few additional center keys at the very top (TIC 147 in the picture below has one, another has three).

To avoid possibly unjustified geographic or ethnic attribution, this documentation uses "njari with/without-LT" for distiction.

Reference key

A possible exception is the lower right manual which - among the 40+ instrument layouts compared for developing the notations - consistently features all seven scale degrees (shared between thumb and index finger), and gets extended on the lower end only.

Notations

• Pitch.1
• Pitch+Octaves.1
• Pitch.4
• Pitch+Octaves.4
• Pitch.5
• Pitch+Octaves.5

There are seven playing areas:

RU: Right hand upper manual, played with the thumb On different njari, this manual has 3-8 keys. Sometimes it is not present at all. If an 8th key is present, it sits on the lower end, sometimes played by both thumbs. RI: Outer keys of the right hand lower manual, played with the index finger Of the 7+ keys in the lower right manual, the 2-4 outer ones are commonly played with the forefinger. RT: Inner keys of the right hand lower manual, played with thumb Most often the entire lower right manual has seven keys, occasionally one or two more are added on the lower end. LU: Left hand upper manual, played with the thumb On different njari, this manual has 4-9 keys. If an 8th key is present, it sits on the lower end. A 9th key is added at the top. LI: Outer keys of the left hand lower manual, played with the index finger On most njari this manual has 3 or 4 keys, matching the forefinger keys of the other side. Sometimes an upper or lower key is added, occasionally there are only two keys (in a single instance only one). LT: Left hand middle manual, played with the thumb If present, this manual has 3-5 keys, and is almost always arranged to facilitate strumming from the LU octave counterparts. B: Left hand bottom manual, played with the thumb The bass manual usually has 4 or 5, sometimes 3 or 6 keys. It starts top down with the same pitches as the RI (and LI) manuals, just on octave lower. Generally the keys are consecutive, on some instruments there is a B2 insteard of B3 (in Pitch.1 notation). Njari maker Phillip Nangle extends the bass manual downwards to ten keys, which are included in the notation.

Pros and cons of different counting schemes

In Pitch.4 and Pitch+Octaves.4 notations, scale degrees 1-3 and 5-6 denote the notes of the kalimba core as in Andrew Tracey's The Original African Mbira?), which can be useful to compare [transcriptions on] different instruments.

Pitch.5 and Pitch+Octaves.5 are congruent to the karimba Pitch.4 and Pitch+Octaves.4 notations.

Click on the tabs below for a description of each notation: