Forward Kwenda: Guruswa - Mbira Video Lesson
Learn how to play mbira with Forward Kwenda : Guruswa video lesson
Scroll down to watch:
One video tutorial to help you learn the traditional mbira song, Guruswa
Forward plays in nemakonde tuning (a low gandanga/mavembe mbira tuning closest to the Western scale, F phrygian)
His Guruswa note choices match best with mbira chord progression 3
🗺 Videos are followed by a ‘travel diaries’ post for extra interest/context
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 0.49 - 1.38 (5 cycles), ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 2.24 - 2.52 (3 cycles), ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.20 - 3.30, ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5.20 - 5.29, ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5.38 - 5.56 (2 cycles), ⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️ and ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6.14 - 7.56 (12 cycles)
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Use the ‘⭐️⭐️⭐️’ gradings beneath notated videos to help you choose variations at your preferred level
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Travel Diaries 🗺
We recorded Guruswa when Forward needed to take a break from Taireva (also progression 3). Check out those videos to find out more about his powerful experience.
His playing here is equally beautiful, and full of variation. The notation pack contains a massive 24 cycles, and extra information.
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Guruswa is widely understood to mean ‘Ancient Africa’ because of a translation given in the sleeve of an Ephat Mujuru album.
While Forward agrees with that interpretation, he also says the word translates literally to ‘big’ (Guru) ‘grass’ (Uswa), telling us:
“Guruswa is long grass found in places like Tanzania where it is said our ancestors started from, down to the last destination, Zimbabwe. So it is popular this grass, and sung about in these mbira sounds.
I think it was sung as a reminder to the ancestors - where they came from. And that tall grass I heard they used it to hide from their enemies.”
Forward says these are the reasons for place names like ‘Bulawayo Guruswa’.