18th International Meeting

StubickeToplice
Croatia

13-17 April, 2011

at the invitation of

Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku

Timkehet Teffera, 
Ethiopia/Germany
timkehet.teffera@mdc-berlin.de
Timkehet@web.de

Melodic Dialects of Ethiopian Folk Music Instruments: An Illustration of the six-stringed bowl lyre Krar of central and northern Ethiopia

The miscellaneous ethnic communities of contemporary Ethiopia are epitomized by their diverse musical idioms that have been created and developed out of their linguistic and cultural peripheries accordingly. Accompanied by historical circumstances, musical traditions reflected among Ethiopian societies have been shaped in different ways and forms and also influenced to various extents in the course of history. The same assortment may also be observed in the melodic dialects of traditional musical instruments. From the base of the cultural dialects, these communities have also invented or constructed their own folk/traditional music that incorporates song and dance repertoires, as well as instrumental melodies containing distinct playing methods and techniques and reflecting certain modes of speaking, the respective musicians use. Hence, musical instruments and their melodies directly reflect a culture, a certain group or subgroup of people, a specific region or locality within a given culture, and they also represent and identify culture through their particular feature.
In central and northern Ethiopia traditional music instruments, specifically chordophones such as the lyre Krar and the spike fiddle Masinqo are broadly used as melody instruments whereby they exclusively serve to accompany songs, mainly solo songs.
This paper attempts to give a special emphasis to selected songs accompanied by the six-stringed bowl lyre Krar. Attention will be given to the instrumental melodies of the accompanying lyre but also to its close link to the vocal melody (song). The peculiarity of melodic dialects, which indicate the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the musician, will be taken into closer consideration.