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 used by the Yoruba people of

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

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 a 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 musician uses their fingers to pluck them, the left hand plucking 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 instrument 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 instrument 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 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 so that 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 instrument 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 the 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 language, Hausa name for the instrument) is one of the many names for a variety of one or one-stringed fiddles from West Africa, played by groups such as the Yoruba people, Yoruba in Sakara music and west African groups that ...

fiddle in Sakara music, the Iya ilu

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, which can be used as a form of speech surrogacy by regulating its pitch and rhythm to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather t ...

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 (music), pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflection, inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic informat ...

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 or ...

. ‘’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 play an equal functional role in the musical development and stylistic use of these Yoruba indigenous rhythms.” Konkolo is an

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

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, middle and low tones, paired with Konkolo speech rhythms. Three of the Agidigbo's tongues are set to high, middle, and low tones. This is done 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 city, capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the List of Nigerian cities by population, third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano (city), Kano, with a total populatio ...

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 . Of this land area, 106,016 km2 (74.6%) lies within Niger ...

. It may accompany a sekere, or waka or an

band. Popular players included Adeolu Akinsanya, Haruna Ishola, Fatai Rolling Dollar, Ebenezer Obey.

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 Nig ...

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