The ''agidigbo'' or ‘’’molo’’’ is a large traditional plucked

lamellophone A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician ...

thumb piano Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...

used by the

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

people of

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

to play

apala Apala (or akpala) is a music genre originally developed by the Yoruba people of Nigeria, during the country's history as a colony of the British Empire. It is a percussion-based style that originated in the late 1930s. The rhythms of apala grew ...

music. It is a box, big enough to sit on the musician’s lap, with 4 to 5 strips of metal set up side by side on top like keys on a piano keyboard. The tongues are designed to vibrate. The musicians uses his fingers to pluck them, the left hand plucking the one or two rhythmic tongues, the right hand plucking the three melodic tongues. "The best players use as many fingers as possible." Players also tap the side of the instrument with a thick ring, or the top with their thumbs or knuckles. The instruments produces sonorous tones. Because of the Yoruba language’s nature as a tonal language, the agidigbo can act as a musical “speech surrogate”, conveying language through its tones.

Characteristics

The instruments consists of five metal tongues mounted onto the top of a box, approximately 2 ft x 2.5 ft and 9 inches high (estimated from photos). The tongues are bent toward to allow them to resonate. They are divided into a set of two and a set of three. The two are for rhythm, the three have a high, middle and low note for melody. Each set is played with a different hand, and so the fingers may be used. A thick ring in a hand can also be used to drum on the instrument’s wooden sides, and the thumb to drum the top. The agidigbo is either played sitting, the instruments on the musicians lap, or suspended at waist level from a rope worn round the neck of the player.

Tuning

The three melodic tongues are set with a second or third between adjacent tongues, with no more than a fifth between lowest and highest notes. Tuning is relative to the other tongues. The rhythmic tongues have a high and a low tone, compared to one another, but are not specifically tuned. Tongues are placed form left to right: *Omele ako (lower rhythmic) *Omele abo (higher rhythmic) *Ìyá-ìlù (low melodic note) *Àdàmò (middle melodic note) *Asájú (high melodic note)

Surrogate for language

In African tonal languages such as Yoruba, instruments whose tone can be controlled can be played to simulate speech. Such speech-surrogate instruments include the

Goje The goje (the Hausa name for the instrument) is one of the many names for a variety of one or two-stringed fiddles from West Africa, almost exclusively played by ethnic groups inhabiting the Sahel and Sudan sparsely vegetated grassland belts lea ...

fiddle in Sakara music, the Iya ilu

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to change the pitc ...

in Yoruba genres, and the Agidigbo thumb piano in

Apala Apala (or akpala) is a music genre originally developed by the Yoruba people of Nigeria, during the country's history as a colony of the British Empire. It is a percussion-based style that originated in the late 1930s. The rhythms of apala grew ...

music. Yoruba words are made of high middle and low tones. Because the tones are important to meaning, they affect the melody. Yoruba musicians are able to combine “

phonemic tone Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...

s” into intelligible speech, using additional tools such as “konkolo rhythm” to add

connotation A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive o ...

. ‘’Konkolo’’ is a syncopated rhythm that may be described as long-short-short. There are 3, five and 7 stroke variations. “ these three stroke patterns that the linguistic attributes plays an equal functional role in the musical development and stylistic use of these Yoruba indigenous rhythms.” Konkolo is an

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

word, the sound that a gong makes. The rhythm permeates Yoruba and other sub-Saharan African music. Musicians can “encode” words into the music by building phonemes of high mid and low tones, paired with Konkolo speech rhythms. Three of the Agidigbo’s tongues are set to high, mid, and low tones, to imitate the phonemes of the Yoruba language. As musicians play the tones to build phonemes, and phonemes into syllables and words, those who speak the language can decode (or understand) the message. Meaning is conveyed in the melodic rise and fall of tones in the words of the language, as well as the rhythm of the language, both of which are played.

Popular use

The instruments was used for indigenous music into the 1920s. As new forms of popular music emerged, musicians adapted it. The instruments and its tonal qualities for into Apala music. The instrument is most popular in the

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano, with a total population of 3,649,000 as of 2021, and over 6 million people within its me ...

and Ijebu areas of

Yorubaland Yorubaland () is the homeland and cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo and Benin, and covers a total land area of 142,114 km2 or about 60% of the land area of Ghana. Of this ...

. It may accompany a

sekere The shekere (from Yoruba Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀) is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd. The Shekere originated in a tribe in Nigeria called the Yoruba. The ins ...

, or

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

or an

band. Popular players included

Adeolu Akinsanya Adeolu may refer to: * Adéolu, mononym of Ade Olufeko, Nigerian-American designer and entrepreneur * Adeolu Akande, Nigerian political scientist * Funsho Adeolu Funsho Adeolu (born 9 May 1968) is a Nigerian actor, film director and film pro ...

Haruna Ishola Haruna Ishola Bello M.O.N. honorary title, Member of the Order of the Niger (1919 – 23 July 1983) was a Yoruba musician, and one of the most popular artists in the apala genre. Music career He was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. Ishola's first album ...

, Fatai Rolling Dollar,

Ebenezer Obey Ebenezer Remilekun Aremu Olasupo Obey-Fabiyi (born 3 April 1942), known professionally as Ebenezer Obey, is a Nigerian jùjú musician. Early life Obey was born on 3 April 1942 to an Egba–Yoruba ethnic background family. Obey, whose real ...

Babatunde Olatunji Michael Babatunde Olatunji (April 7, 1927 – April 6, 2003) was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist, and recording artist. Early life Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Niger ...

famously plays an ''agidigbo'' on "Oyin Momo Ado" (Sweet as Honey), which is track 7 on his 1959 ''Drums of Passion'' album.

External links

Photo of a agidigbo.

References