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Azmari
An Azmari (Amharic: አዝማሪ) is an entertainer who sings and plays traditional string instruments of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are comparable to medieval European minstrels, bards 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 unpopu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krar
The ''krar'' (Geʽez: 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 Instrument amplifier, amplified, much in the same way as an electric guitar or electric violin, violin. The ''krar'', along with the ''masenqo'' and the ''washint'', is one of the most widespread musical instruments in Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. Role in society Historical In Amhara People, 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, create sexual arousal, and eulogize carnal love. The Derg regime banned playing the krar and imprisoned people who played it, especially in the big cities such as Asmara and Addis Ababa. The instrument has been associated with brigands, outlaws, and ''Wata'' or ''Azmari'' wanderers. Wanderers played the ''krar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amharas
Amharas (; ) are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group indigenous to Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, traditionally inhabiting parts of the northwest Highlands of Ethiopia, particularly 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.United States Census Bureau 2009–2013, Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2009–2013, USCB, 30 November 2016, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2013/demo/2009-2013-lang-tables.html They speak Amharic, a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic branch which serves as the main and one of the five official languages of Ethiopia. As of 2018, Amharic has over 32 million native speakers and 25 million second ... [...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 1,467-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] |
Griots
A griot (; ; Manding: or (in N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, which is an African tradition. Instead of writing history books, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. Sometimes there are families of historians, and the oral histories are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud allows the speaker to use poetic and musical conventions that entertain an audience. This has contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down. Through their storytelling, griots preserve and pass on the values of a tribe or people, such as the Senegalese, who are Muslims. The Wolof people in Senegal, many of whom cannot read or write, depend on griots to learn about their culture. The griot is a repository of oral tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masenqo
The masenqo (; Tigrinya: ጭራ-ዋጣ (ዋጣ), also known as masinko or mesenko, is a single-stringed bowed lute commonly found in the musical traditions of Eritrea and 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 Eritrea * Music of Ethiopia * Rebab ''Rebab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tizita
Tizita (var. Tezeta; ; ) is one of the Pentatonic scales or Qañat of the Amhara ethnic group. Etymology and origin The term ''tizita'' is distinctly Tigrinya, and Amharic, there's no Geez equivalent, as opposed to the term ''nafkot'' which belongs 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 ''cnenie'', '' Sehnsucht'' in German, ... [...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. They are comparable to medieval European minstrels, bards or West African griots. ''Azmari'', who may be either ... 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 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 Tigre des P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minstrels
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term 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 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and 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'), and ('bard, poet'), ('singer, poet'), Middle Breton: ''b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian 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. It is the only country in the region with such a high elevated surface. This elevated surface is bisected diagonally by the Great East African Rift System which extends from Syria to Mozambique across the East African Lakes. Most of the Ethiopian Highlands are part of central and northern Ethiopia, and its northernmost portion reaches into Eritrean Highlands, Eritrea. History In the southern parts of the Ethiopian Highlands once was located the Kingdom of Kaffa, a medieval and Early modern period, early modern state, whence the coffee plant was exported to the Arabian Peninsula. The land of the former kingdom is mountainou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Instruments
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like Guitar, guitars, by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum, plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow, like Violin, violins. In some keyboard (music), 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 classic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
