Ethiopian Traditional Music

Ethiopian traditional music is the body of folk and secular practices built on the pentatonic kiñit scales of the Ethiopian highlands, distinct from the Ethio-jazz and pop that later borrowed from it. Its emblematic instruments are the six-string krar lyre, the single-string masenqo fiddle of the azmari minstrels, the bamboo washint flute, the kebero drum and the ten-string begena, the great lyre reserved for devotional song. Improvised praise, satire, history and religious meditation are carried by solo singer-instrumentalists and small ensembles in a heterophonic texture of voice and lyre.