Mabhengu playing umqangala

Umqangala is a 60cm mouth-resonated, finger-plucked bow made from hollow river-reed which is unflexible. It is strung with thin gut, tendon, or sometimes discarded fishing line”. (Johnston, 1980)Umqangala is made like the Xhosa uMrhubhe, with a short curved bow and unbraced string. The player beats it with a light reed, following the melody by resonating the overtones with the mouth. The string is touched with the thumb or a finger in order to obtain the higher fundamental (Dargie, 2007).