Exploring Ethiopian Instrumental Music and Musicians

Abstract

In many Ethiopian traditional cultures, vocal music dominates the musical repertoire. It is only in a handful of traditional contexts, where solely instrumental music becomes part of the repertoire. Contrary to this, however, the modern music domain in Ethiopia offers a wide range of instrumental music. The root of instrumental music in Ethiopia is, most probably, connected with the emergence of independent/private bands in the early 1960s. These modern bands with highly trained Ethiopian musicians, among others, offered ‘light-music’ in hotels and restaurants. In the initial periods, their repertoire mainly entailed re-arranged international melodies. The advancement of the modern music paved a way to increasing musical creativity over the decades to follow. My presentation will attempt to look at instrumentals performed with western music instruments, of which the large part derives from already existing traditional and modern songs. Representative musical pieces will be given special focus in terms of their instrumentation, rearrangement, melodic and metro-rhythmic structures, form and style along with their function, meaning and understanding.