sansan.
/ˈsansə/ An African musical instrument consisting of a wooden box having at the top tongues of bamboo or iron which the performer vibrates with his thumb and forefingers. Cf. Kaffir piano n., marimba n.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > musical instrument > other musical instruments > [noun] > sansa
ambira1625
marimba1856
sansa1864
marimbula1931
likembe1948
mbira1948
thumb piano1952
lamellophone1953
rumba box1953
kalimba1968
1864 C. Engel Music Most Anc. Nations 14 Nos. 4, 5, and 6 show the notes of three zanzes.
1874 C. Engel Descr. Catal. Mus. Instruments S. Kensington Mus. (ed. 2) 297 The zanze, or sansa, is to be found principally among the Negro tribes of upper and lower Guinea.
1876 J. Stainer & W. A. Barrett Dict. Musical Terms 455/1 Zanze... Known also by the names of mambira, ambira, marimba, ibeka, vissandschi, in different parts of Africa.
1905 Rep. Brit. Assoc. 529 A derivative from the African sansa.
1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. Sanse.
1929 Notes & Queries Anthropol. (ed. 5) ii. 299 The ‘musical-box’ is an elaborated mechanical analogue of the sansa.
1970 Guardian 24 Apr. 9/1 They improvise together on the xylophone, sansas (thumb pianos), guitar, or piano.
1975 S. Marcuse Musical Instruments (rev. ed.) 455/1 Sansa, linguaphone consisting of tuned metal or split-cane tongues fitted to a wooden board or resonator, so that one end of the lamellae can vibrate freely. Sansa is the name of the linguaphone among the Marungu people of the Congo; by extension it has come to be used in a generic sense for all similar instr[ument]s.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1982; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1864