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Begena
The ''begena'', also known as ''bagana'' ( am, በገና) is a ten-stringed box-lyre instrument from the Amhara people of Ethiopia, and is the sole melodic instrument devoted only to the ''zema'', the spiritual part of Amhara music. Etymology and origin The instrument's name is derived from ''bägänä'', "to buzz, pluck, play;" it is etymologically related to the Hebrew (''nagan''), "touch/play stringed instrument" Oral tradition identifies the instrument with the ''kinnor'' of Ancient Israel, played by David to soothe King Saul's nerves and heal him of insomnia, and later brought to Africa by Menelik I. Its actual origin remains in doubt, though local manuscripts depict the instrument at the beginning of the 15th century AD. Instrument Known as the instrument of noblemen, monks and the upper class and performed by both men and women. The begena was used primarily as an accompaniment during meditation and prayer. It is played in the framework of religious occasions. Duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alemu Aga
Alemu Aga ( am, ዓለሙ አጋ; born 1950) is an Ethiopian musician, singer, and master of the Begena. Life Born in Entotto, near Addis Ababa, Alemu became interested in the Begena (a ten-stringed member of the lyre family, also known as "King David's Harp") at the age of twelve, when a master of the instrument, the Aleqa Tessema Welde-Emmanuel, stayed next door to his family. Aleqa Tessema began teaching at Desta Damtew, Ras Desta school, where Alemu was a pupil. As well as studying the begena at school, Alemu carried his master's instrument to and from school, and thus benefited from more of Tessema's time. He went on to study geography at Addis Ababa University, and after graduation went to work as a geography and begena professor at the Yared Music School, where for seven years he also taught begena. Alemu went on to become an acknowledged master of the instrument, first recorded in 1972 by Cynthia Tse Kimberlin for a major UNESCO collection, and performing and broadcasti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amhara People
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 midd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chordophone
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classical music (violin, viola, cello and double bass) and a number of other instruments (e.g., viols and gambas used in early music from the Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Qine
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is '' codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyres
Yoke lutes, commonly called lyres, are a class of string instruments, subfamily of lutes, indicated with the code 321.2 in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification. Description Yoke lutes are defined as instruments with one or more strings, arranged parallel to the sound board and attached to a yoke lying on the same plane as the sound table, composed of two arms and a crosspiece. Most of the instruments of the lyre family are played by plucking the strings, but some involve the use of a bow instead. The sound box can be either bowl-shaped (321.21) or box-shaped (321.22). In the first case, the resonator is often a turtle shell, while the sound board is made of leather. In the second case, usually both the body and the sound board are made of wood. Examples Examples of yoke lutes are the lyre, the ''cithara'' and the '' phorminx'' from Ancient Greece, the biblical ''kinnor'' and the African '' nyatiti''. However, there are other instruments called "lyra" or "lira" that do not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridge (instrument)
A bridge is a device that supports the strings on a stringed musical instrument and transmits the vibration of those strings to another structural component of the instrument—typically a soundboard, such as the top of a guitar or violin—which transfers the sound to the surrounding air. Depending on the instrument, the bridge may be made of carved wood (violin family instruments, acoustic guitars and some jazz guitars), metal (electric guitars such as the Fender Telecaster) or other materials. The bridge supports the strings and holds them over the body of the instrument under tension. Explanation Most stringed instruments produce sound through the application of energy to the strings, which sets them into vibratory motion, creating musical sounds. The strings alone, however, produce only a faint sound because they displace only a small volume of air as they vibrate. Consequently, the sound of the strings alone requires impedance matching to the surrounding air by tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentatonic Scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic). Types Hemitonic and anhemitonic Musicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either ''hemitonic'' or ''anhemitonic''. Hemitonic scales contain one or more semitones and anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. (For example, in Japanese music the anhemitonic ''yo'' scale is contrasted with the hemitonic ''in'' scale.) Hemitonic pentatonic scales are also called "ditonic scales", because the largest interval in them is the ditone (e.g., in the scale C–E–F–G–B–C, the interval found between C–E and G–B). (This should not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, the city's population was estimated to be 2,739,551 inhabitants. Addis Ababa is a highly developed and important cultural, artistic, financial and administrative centre of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa was portrayed in the 15th century as a fortified location called "Barara" that housed the emperors of Ethiopia at the time. Prior to Emperor Dawit II, Barara was completely destroyed during the Ethiopian–Adal War and Oromo expansions. The founding history of Addis Ababa dates back in late 19th-century by Menelik II, Negus of Shewa, in 1886 after finding Mount Entoto unpleasant two years prior. At the time, the city was a resort town; its large mineral spring abundance attracted nobilities of the empire, led them to establish permanent settl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yared Music School
Saint Yared ( Ge'ez: ቅዱስ ያሬድ; 25 April 505 – 20 May 571) was an Aksumite composer in the 6th century. Often credited with the forerunner of traditional music of Ethiopia and Eritrea, he developed the music of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Eritrean Orthodox Church, and the use in liturgical music, as well as the Ethiopian musical notation system. Additionally, he composed '' Zema,'' or the chant tradition of Ethiopia, particularly the chants of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, which are still performed today. St. Yared was from Axum; according to traditional legend, his earlier education was dwindled after his father death, and his mother subsequently sent him to parish priest Abba Gedeon. Upon embarking exile to his uncle's birthplace in Murade Qal, St. Yared remorsed from his failure in education after he saw exemplification of a caterpillar's effort to climb up a tree to its peak. Stimulated by the caterpillar's success, St. Yared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
