The Ambassel scale is a

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 an ...

widely used in the

Gonder Gondar, also spelled Gonder (Amharic: ጎንደር, ''Gonder'' or ''Gondär''; formerly , ''Gʷandar'' or ''Gʷender''), is a city and woreda in Ethiopia. Located in the North Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Gondar is north of Lake Tana on t ...

and

Wollo Wollo (Amharic: ወሎ) was a historical province of northern Ethiopia that overlayed part of the present day Amhara, Afar, and Tigray regions. During the Middle Ages this region was known as Bete Amhara and had Amhara kings. Bete Amhara had ...

regions of

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. The notes of the scale (from C) are C, Db, F, G and Ab. It can be viewed as a pentatonic subset of the

Phrygian scale The Phrygian mode (pronounced ) can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek ''tonos'' or ''harmonia,'' sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set of octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern ...

on intervals 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 or as a mode of the Hirajoshi scale. The scale is used in

Ethiopian music Ethiopian music is a term that can mean any music of Ethiopian origin, however, often it is applied to a genre, a distinct modal system that is pentatonic, with characteristically long intervals between some notes. The music of the Ethiopian Hi ...

for songs with historical themes. It can be heard used on the song "Ambassel" by Abate Berihun and Yitzhak Yedid on their ''Duo Ras Dashen'' album.

References

* Pentatonic scales Hemitonic scales Tritonic scales {{Music-theory-stub

See also

References