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The Ambassel scale () is a
The Ambassel scale () is a pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale).
Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient ci ...
widely used in the Gonder and Wollo
Wollo (Amharic: ወሎ) was a historical province of northern Ethiopia. During the Middle Ages this province name was Bete Amhara and it was the centre of the Solomonic emperors. Bete Amhara had an illustrious place in Ethiopian political and ...
regions of Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
.
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 on intervals 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 or as a mode of the Hirajoshi scale.
The scale is used in Ethiopian music 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.
See also
*Music of Ethiopia
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 H ...
References
* Pentatonic scales Hemitonic scales Tritonic scales {{Music-theory-stub