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.
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The music of the Ethiopian Highlands uses a fundamental modal system called qenet, of which there are four main modes: tezeta, bati, ambassel, and anchihoy.[1] Three additional modes are variations on the above: tezeta minor, bati major, and bati minor.[2][3][4] Some songs take the name of their qenet, such as tizita, a song of reminiscence.[1] When played on traditional instruments, these modes are generally not tempered (that is, the pitches may deviate slightly from the Western-tempered tuning system), but when played on Western instruments such as pianos and guitars, they are played using the Western-tempered tuning system.
Music in the Ethiopian highlands is generally monophonic or heterophonic.[1] In certain southern areas, some music is polyphonic. Dorze polyphonic singing (edho) may employ up to five parts; Majangir, four parts.[1]
In the highlands, traditional string instruments include the masenqo (also known as masinko), a one-string bowed lute; the krar (also known as kirar), a six-string lyre; and the begena, a large ten-string lyre.[5]The dita (a five-string lyre)[6] and musical bows (including an unusual three-string variant) are among the chordophones found in the south.[5]
In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, liturgical music employs the senasel (a sistrum).[5] Additionally, the clergy will use walking stick, called mequamia,[7] to maintain rhythm.[5] Rural churches historically used a dawal to call the faithful to prayer. They are made from stone slabs or pieces of wood.[5] The Beta Israel use a small gong called a qachel as liturgical accompaniment, though qachel may also refer to a small bell.[5] The toom, a lamellophone, is used among the Nuer, Anuak, Majangir, Surma, and other Nilotic groups.[5] Metal leg rattles are common throughout the south.[5]
Religious music is very important and plays significant role to Ethiopian Orthodox society. The term mezmur is instinctively denotes an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo music. There are also wide range of Islamic music. Protestant music also plays a dominant role since booming its distribution via CDs in 2000s, and recently it evolves from digital downloads.
Some Ethiopian religious music has an ancient Christian element, traced to Yared, who lived during the reign of Emperor Gebre Meskel (Son of Kaleb of Aksumite Empire) in the 6th century. Yared was considered the father of Ethiopian-Eritrean traditional music as well as he composed chant or Zema and the use in liturgical music. Zema is divided into three chant modes: Ge'ez, Ezel and Araray.[9] Manzuma developed around 1907. Sung in Amharic and Oromo most notably in Dire Dawa, Harar and Jimma where Ethiopian Muslims reside.[10] In the Ethiopian Highlands, traditional secular music is played by mostly itinerant musicians called azmaris, who are regarded with respect in Ethiopian society.[citation needed]
Ethiopia is a musically traditional country. Popular music is played, recorded and listened to, but most musicians also sing traditional songs, and most audiences choose to listen to both popular and traditional styles. A long-standing popular musical tradition in Ethiopia was that of brass bands, imported from Jerusalem in the form of forty Armenian orphans (Arba Lijoch) during the reign of Haile Selassie. This band, which arrived in Addis Ababa on 6 September 1924, became the first official orchestra of Ethiopia. By the end of World War II, large orchestras accompanied singers; the most prominent orchestras were the Army Band, Police Band, and Imperial Bodyguard Band.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, Ethiopian popular musicians included Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Hirut Bekele, Ali Birra, Ayalew Mesfin, Kiros Alemayehu, Muluken Melesse and Tilahun Gessesse, while popular folk musicians included Alemu Aga, Kassa Tessema, Ketema Makonnen, Asnaketch Worku, and Mary Armede. Perhaps the most influential musician of the period, however, was Ethio-jazz innovator Mulatu Astatke. Amha Records, Kaifa Records, and Philips-Ethiopia were prominent Ethiopian record labels during this era. Since 1997, Buda Musique's Éthiopiques series has compiled many of these singles and albums on compact disc.
During the 1980s, the Derg controlled Ethiopia, and emigration became almost impossible. Musicians during this period included Ethio Stars, Walias Band and Roha Band, though the singer Neway Debebe was most popular. He helped to popularize the use of seminna-werq (wax and gold, a poetic form of double entendre) in music (previously only used in qiné, or poetry) that often enabled singers to criticize the government without upsetting the censors.
The most prominent internationally acclaimed singers are Aster Aweke, Alemayehu Eshete, Gigi, Teddy Afro, Tilahun Gessesse and Mahmoud Ahmed. Tilahun Gessesse was popular through 20th-century and nicknamed "The Voice" due to his prolong tenor vocal. In 2001, Teddy Afro debut his album Abugida and quickly become famous singer in his generation, nicknamed "Blatenaw" (English: The boy). Some commentators also compare Teddy Afro with Tilahun Gessesse by musical style and patriotic sentiments. Through her performing with prominent Western jazz musicians such as Bill Laswell (who is also her husband) and Herbie Hancock, Gigi has brought Ethiopian music to popular attention, especially in the United States, where she now lives. Through her 1999 album Hagere and "Abebayehosh", Aster Aweke is renowned for her voice that attracted broader audience.
Éthiopiques producer Francis Falceto criticizes contemporary Ethiopian music for eschewing traditional instruments and ensemble playing in favor of one-man bands using synthesizers.[11] Harvard University professor Kay Kaufman Shelemay, on the other hand, maintains that there is genuine creativity in the contemporary music scene.[12] She further points out that Ethiopian music is not alone in shifting to electronically produced music, a point that Falceto acknowledges.[11][12]
In the West, several bands were also created in recent years to play music inspired by the Éthiopiques series and other examples of Ethiopian music of the '60s and '70s. They include Boston's Either/Orchestra,[13] Imperial Tiger Orchestra (Switzerland),[14] and Le Tigre des platanes (France).[15]
New genres of music, popular in western countries, such as EDM, rock and hip hop have been introduced in recent years. Musical acts like Jano Band play a new style of music progressive rock, with a mix of Ethiopian music.[16] Hip hop music started influencing Ethiopian music in the early to mid 2000s and culminated with the creation of Ethiopian hip hop, rhymed in the native Amharic language. The earliest and most influential rappers of the hip hop were Teddy Yo and Lij Michael, with the latter being more commercially successful.[17] The success of both Jano Band and Lij Michael led to their inclusion in the 2017 edition of Coke Studio Africa[16]The electronic dance music in Ethiopia was not fully developed until mid-2010, although some electronic music employment with hip hop element began in the 2000s. In 2018, a DJ and recording artist named Rophnan introduced the country to his own version of electronic dance music, winning the album of the year award and changing the mainstream music scene further.[18]
Since 2016, the most used record label is Hope Music Entertainment, while Minew Shewa Entertainment and Admas Music are used as secondary labels. Hope Music Entertainment, Minew Shewa Entertainment and Dire Tube become the country's online streaming media in recent years.[19] Dire Tube typically recovers older recordings and music videos. The most notable label throughout the 2000s is Nahom Records, which is still active.
Upon inquiring about the young musicians, Tafari learned they were orphans of the Armenian genocide and with permission from the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, adopted them, bringing the Arba Lijoch (Forty Children in Amharic) as they came to be known, back with him to Addis Ababa. It was to be the beginning of a musical renaissance in Ethiopia that unfolded and developed throughout the next few decades.
Tafari provided the Arba Lijoch a musical education along with stipends and housing. They came to form the Royal Imperial Brass Band, beginning a tradition in modern Ethiopian music of heavily using brass instruments. The Arba Lijoch were trained by musical director Kevork Nalbandian, also an orphan of Armenian descent. Impressed by their progress and skill, Selassie asked Nalbandian to compose a national anthem for Ethiopia and on the November 2, 1930, coronation day, the anthem, Marsh Teferi was unveiled with the Arba Lijoch performing and Prince Ras Tafari becoming the Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Haile Selassie I.
Jothilakshmi [9] applied a Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and a K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) algorithm with spectral shape and perceptual features to Indian music datasets containing five genres. GMM gave the best accuracy with 91.25%. Rajesh [10] again utilized KNN and support vector machines (SVM), using different feature combinations. The highest classification recorded (96.05%) was by SVM using fractional MFCC with the addition of spectral roll off, flux, skewness, and kurtosis.
Al Mamun [11] used both deep learning and machine learning approaches on Bangla music datasets with six genres. The neural network model performed best compared to the machine learning methods, with accuracy 74%. Folorunso [12] investigated KNN, SVM, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and Random Forest on Nigerian songs (in the ORIN dataset) with five genres. The XGBoost classifier had the highest accuracy (81.94%). De Sousa [13] implemented SVMs on a Brazilian Music Dataset (BMD) with seven genres. The set of features they proposed was specifically tailored to genre recognition yielding a high classification accuracy of 86.11%.
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