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Azmari
An Azmari (Amharic: አዝማሪ) is an entertainer who sings and plays traditional string instruments of the Ethiopian Highlands. Its comparable to medieval European minstrels or bard or West African griots. ''Azmari'', who may be either male or female, are skilled at singing extemporized verses, accompanying themselves on either a ''masenqo'' (one-stringed fiddle) or ''krar'' (lyre). Etymology Azmari means (''to sing'' or ''singer'') in Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth .... Amharas tend to call all musicians Azmari simply because there's no other word in the language denoting a person who plays a musical instrument. History The earliest documented mention of the ''Azmaris'' goes back to the mid-15th century, and they presumably go back much further. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azmari In A Tejbeit
An Azmari (Amharic: አዝማሪ) is an entertainer who sings and plays traditional string instruments of the Ethiopian Highlands. Its comparable to medieval European minstrels or bard or West African griots. ''Azmari'', who may be either male or female, are skilled at singing extemporized verses, accompanying themselves on either a ''masenqo'' (one-stringed fiddle) or ''krar'' (lyre). Etymology Azmari means (''to sing'' or ''singer'') in Amharic. Amharas tend to call all musicians Azmari simply because there's no other word in the language denoting a person who plays a musical instrument. History The earliest documented mention of the ''Azmaris'' goes back to the mid-15th century, and they presumably go back much further. Role in society ''Azmaris'' once played an important role as social critics by improvising sophisticated texts of praise or criticism. ''Azmaris'' would mock people in high places, and even Emperors were not spared if they were found to be unpopular w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krar
Krar (Amharic: ክራር) is a five-or-six stringed bowl-shaped lyre from Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is tuned to a pentatonic scale. A modern ''Krar'' may be amplified, much in the same way as an electric guitar or violin. The ''Krar'', along with ''Masenqo'' and the ''Washint'', is one of the most widespread musical instruments of the Amhara ethnic group. Role in Amhara society Historical In Amhara society the ''krar'' was viewed as an instrument inspired by the Devil and was therefore inferior, whereas the '' Begena'' was for praising God and seen as sacred. The ''krar'' was used to adulate feminine beauty, to create sexual arousal and to eulogize carnal love. The instrument has been associated with brigands, outlaws and wanderers. Wanderers played the ''krar'' to solicit food, and outlaws played it to sing an Amhara war song called ''Fano''. Contemporary Today, the ''krar'' which used to be the plaything of the Amharas, has become one of the most popular Ethiopian stri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cornwallis Harris
Major Sir William Cornwallis Harris (baptised 2 April 1807 – died 9 October 1848) was an English military engineer, artist and hunter. Life and career Early life The son of James Harris of Wittersham, Kent, he entered Addiscombe Military Seminary at the age of fourteen. Two years later, in December 1823, he joined the army of the East India Company as second lieutenant in Engineers, Bombay Establishment. Over the following thirteen years, he was posted to several places in India and was able to pursue his taste for field sports and the depiction of wildlife. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1824 and to captain ten years later. South Africa In June 1836, Harris arrived at Cape Town on the 1467-ton ''Buckinghamshire'' and stayed for two years in order to recover from a fever. He was fortunate to meet Dr. Andrew Smith, freshly returned from a journey north on which he had visited Mzilikazi at Mosega. From the Cape, he arranged a hunting trip, which was to last from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amharas
Amharas ( am, አማራ, Āmara; gez, ዐምሐራ, ʾÄməḥära) are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group which is indigenous to Ethiopia, traditionally inhabiting parts of the northwest Highlands of Ethiopia, particularly inhabiting the Amhara Region. According to the 2007 national census, Amharas numbered 19,867,817 individuals, comprising 26.9% of Ethiopia's population, and they are mostly Oriental Orthodox Christian (members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church). They are also found within the Ethiopian expatriate community, particularly in North America. They speak Amharic, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Semitic branch which serves as one of the five official languages of Ethiopia. As of 2018, Amharic has over 32 million native speakers and 25 million second language speakers. Various scholars have classified the Amharas and neighboring populations as Abyssinians. Origin The earliest extants of the Amhara as a people, dates to the early 12th century in the middle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griots
A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader due to their position as an advisor to royal personages. As a result of the former of these two functions, they are sometimes called bards. They also act as mediators in disputes. Occurrence and naming Many griots today live in many parts of West Africa and are present among the Mande peoples ( Mandinka or Malinké, Bambara, Soninke etc.), Fulɓe (Fula), Hausa, Songhai, Tukulóor, Wolof, Serer,Unesco. Regional Office for Education in Africa, ''Educafrica, Numéro 11'', (ed. Unesco, Regional Office for Education in Africa, 1984), p. 110Hale, Thomas Albert, ''Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music'', Indiana University Press (1998), p. 176, Mossi, Dagomba, Mauritania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masenqo
The Masenqo ( am, ማሲንቆ; Tigrinya: ጭራ-ዋጣ (ዋጣ) is a single-stringed bowed lute commonly found in the musical traditions of Ethiopia. As with the krar, this instrument is used by Ethiopian minstrels called ''azmaris'' ("singer" in Amharic) . Although it functions in a purely accompaniment capacity in songs, the masenqo requires considerable virtuosity, as azmaris accompany themselves while singing. Construction and design The square or diamond-shaped resonator is made of four small wooden boards glued together, then covered with a stretched parchment or rawhide. The single string is typically made of horse hair, and passes over a bridge. The instrument is tuned by means of a large tuning peg to fit the range of the singer's voice. It may be bowed by either the right or left hand, and the non-bow hand sits lightly on top of the upper part of the string. See also * Music of Ethiopia * Music of Eritrea The music of Eritrea, is a diverse mix of traditional an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tizita
Tizita/Tezeta/tazata ( am, ትዝታ; en, memory, "nostalgia" or "longing") is one of the Pentatonic scales or Qañat of the Amhara ethnic group. Etymology and origin The term ''tizita'' is distinctly Amharic, there's no Geez equivalent, contrarily to the term ''nafkot'' which belong to both languages with the same meaning (regret, emotion linked to a remembrance). Tizita folk songs developed in the countryside by the Amhara peasantry and the village musicians called the Azmaris. Tizita music genre Tizita songs are a popular music genre in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It's named after the Tizita Qañat mode/scale used in such songs. Tizita is known for strongly moving listener's feelings not only among the Amhara, but a large number of Ethiopians, in general. Western sources often compare tizita to the blues. Other musical equivalent are the Portuguese ''Saudade'', ''Assouf'' for the Tuareg people, or ''Dor'' in Romania. In Slovakia, the closest word is ''clivota'' or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eténèsh Wassié
Eténèsh Wassié (born 1971) is an Ethiopian jazz singer, renowned for her collaborative approach to music and performance. Biography Wassié was born in 1971 in Gondar to an Ethiopian Orthodox family. She began performing in the 1990s in Addis Ababa in azmaribèt - a crossover between cabaret and the Azmari An Azmari (Amharic: አዝማሪ) is an entertainer who sings and plays traditional string instruments of the Ethiopian Highlands. Its comparable to medieval European minstrels or bard or West African griots. ''Azmari'', who may be either male ... vocal tradition. She is renowned for singing in Amharic and is a leading blues singer in Addis Ababa where she lives. In 2007 Wassié began a collaboration with Mathieu Sourisseau, which fused together her knowledge of traditional music and his jazz guitar, known as Ethio-jazz. She performed at Seine-Saint Denis Festival in 2018, celebrating twenty years of '''Éthiopiques. Discography * ''Zeraf!'' (2007, album with Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minstrels
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments. Description Minstrels performed songs which told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours, and many became wandering minstrels, performing in the streets; a decline in their popularity began in the late 15th century. Minstrels fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to be moderately strong into the early 20th century, and which has some continuity in the form of today's bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities. With the decline of a living bardic tradition in the modern period, the term has loosened to mean a generic minstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal". Oxford Dictionary of English, s.v. ''bard'', n.1. In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for an itinerant musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). Etymology The English term ''bard'' is a loan word from the Celtic languages: Gaulish: ''bardo-'' ('bard, poet'), mga, bard and ('bard, poet'), wlm, bardd ('singer, poet'), Middle Breton: ''barz'' ('m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , while the summits reach heights of up to . It is sometimes called the Roof of Africa due to its height and large area. Most of the Ethiopian Highlands are part of central and northern Ethiopia, and its northernmost portion reaches into Eritrea. History In the southern parts of the Ethiopian Highlands once was located the Kingdom of Kaffa, a medieval early modern state, whence the coffee plant was exported to the Arabian Peninsula. The land of the former kingdom is mountainous with stretches of forest. The land is very fertile, capable of three harvests a year. The term ''coffee'' derives from the ar, قهوة, italic=no ()''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "coffee, ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1891. and is traced to Kaffa. Physical geography The Highl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amharic
Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns of Ethiopia. The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions. It has over 31,800,000 mother-tongue speakers, with more than 25,100,000 second language speakers. Amharic is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo). Amharic is also the second largest Semitic language in the world (after Arabic). Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script. The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units is called an ''abugida'' (). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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