By Clive mono` Mukundu

One advantage of being a session musician who plays for different artists is that you get to own how you sound. Every instrumentalist has a certain choice of notes & rhythms whenever he plays. This also combines with how one strikes his notes, the intensity, the release, etc., with time people will learn to identify it as his style. Having your own style is a serious marketing tool worldwide. Carlos Santana once said “The moment I play the one note you must know it me’.

The common definition of sound is something that you hear like ‘The sound of a car’. But the definition I’m referring to in this post is commonly used by us musicians as a countable noun to mean the distinctive quality & style of music, or playing, as merriam.com describes it: “A particular auditory impression or tone”.

Internationally it is encouraged for every instrumentalist to have his/her own distinct sound. I am sure we all can tell when it’s Macheso on bass, or when it was Tuku on acoustic guitar, it means we know their distinct sound. American bassist Marcus Miller & his friend drummer Omar Hakim one time decided to stop listening & copying other bassists & drummers so that they create their own sound after noticing that they sound like everybody, but themselves, this happens a lot with cover bands who survive on playing other people’s music. I am sure you can notice that with the current majority of Sungura music bass players who have adopted the Macheso sound on bass.

My observation here is that many times when an instrumentalist plays for one artist only for too long their distinctive sound becomes synonymous with that artist or band. They become part of that artist’s identity sound-wise. For example, the late great guitarist and idol of mine Jonah Sithole played a lot for the icon Thomas Mapfumo & helped shape the Chimurenga sub-genre, his guitar style was recognizable, but it sort of became Mukanya’s signature sound. Jonah Sithole contributed a lot to the Blacks unlimited sound; the end result was that every time one heard a Jonah Sithole’s guitar intro they would say “That’s Thomas Mapfumo”.

The same happened to another great guitarist Bizerk, he helped shape Leonard Zhakata’s Zora sub-genre sound a lot. He started playing for Zhakata when Zhakata was still part of The Maungwe Brothers, & Bizerk was part of the Haka sounds then. His guitar style is so unique & distinct, but sadly it also became associated with Leonard Zhakata to the extent that every time he played on anybody’s music people would sort of thinking it was a Zhakata song. It also happened to the late Philani Dube, who served for a long time at Oliver Mtukudzi’s band.

The only problem with that is that this can negatively affect the guitarist when he wants to do session work for other artists because normally artists do not want music fans to mistake their sound for another artist’s sound.

This is different if one is a session instrumentalist. A session musician who works with different artists’ style is credited to his name, not to any artist that he worked for. Take a look at guitarists such as Loui Mhlanga. Loui has a very distinct sound, but everyone knows its loui on guitar, the style is not credited to any other artist.

If you know James’s Chimombe’s old hit ‘Jojo Mudiwa wangu’, that was his original sound. It was when he asked to join Philip Svosve’s Ocean City Band after it split from Mukadota that his sound drastically changed. For the first time, he had a brass section & keyboards as part of his sound,& he became an instant household name. The reason is that it was the Ocean City Band sound. The end result is that the Ocean City Band sound became a James Chimombe sound.

As a guitarist, it has always been my aim for my style to be associated with me,& I thank God I managed to achieve that. I am not saying it is a bad thing, it is a simple observation.

In the pic is me & guitarist Jimmy Dludlu at a festival in South Africa, 2003.

Anyway, this is Mono,
God’s favorite guitarist signing off.