A history of Music in Ethiopia: musicians, instruments and musical manuscripts from 1270-1974. (Patreon)

"they must have taken quite thirty turns round the church chanting like a litany and sounding many drums and cymbals as they sung and celebrated a feast. They said that this procession was made in supplication to God for rain for their sowing".

-Francisco Alvares, 1515.

Few African musical traditions have been as comprehensively documented and studied as those from the medieval kingdom of Ethiopia. For many centuries, Ethiopia was home to a diverse cultural landscape that developed one of Africa's most enduring musical traditions, instruments, musicians and writings.

The documentary and oral history of Ethiopian music traverses many important aspects of ethnomusicology, from semi-legendary accounts of celebrated musicians who laid the foundations of Ethiopian liturgical music and its written notation system, to the different perfomances of music in various political and cultural contexts, and the many instruments used to enhance these perfomances.

This article explores the history of Music in Ethiopia between the 13th and 20th century. It provides a broad overview on the ecclesiastical and secular music traditions of Ethiopia, looking at the systems of musical education, transmission, and perfomances in both categories as well as historical accounts about Ethiopian music from external sources.

The banquet hall in king Sahla Sellase's palace, Shewa, Ethiopia ca. 1852, with a group of royal musicians/minstrels on the front left

Ethiopian musical education, notation system and performance in ecclesiastical contexts.

In Ethiopia, music is conceived as a sacred/secular dichotomy. Music of everyday life, zafan, is performed by both men and women; it possesses a distinctive musical system and its styles vary according to the geographical and ethnic heritage of a musician. This music is often transmitted orally and performed by seasoned musicians as well as novices for a variety of audiences from royals to common folk. Ethiopian sacred/ecclesiastical music, zēmā, is performed by highly trained male scholar-musicians called debtara; it possesses a distinctive modal and notation system, and was transmitted both orally and texturally.

(A concept of Sacred music in Ethiopia pg 52)

Music and literacy are taught in a single curriculum in ecclesiastical schools. Students begin to acquire the repertory by memorizing chants that serve as models for whole melodies and as the sources of the melodic phrases linked to individual notational signs. The young student then goes through a series of specific bēt (literally, "house" or "school") where different aspects of zēmā are taught. The most prominent of these Zema schools is Bethlehem school, named after the Ethiopian monastery where it is located, others include the Qoma Fasilidas monastery and the Brur Maryam monastery.

(A concept of Sacred music in Ethiopia pg 56-59)

The student begins learning the Ge'ez syllabary, afterwhich he has to memorize the epistle of st. John in four styles of vocal articulation that include chanting. From this point on reading, writing, memorization, and vocalization are intertwined in the learning process, as the student reads the Acts of the Apostles and Psalms of David while serving as a chorister. In the final stage of studying the Psalms of David, the students memorize the 'Praise of Mary' and learn orally the Canticles of the Old and New Testaments. At a later stage of training each one copies out a complete notated manuscript on parchment using medieval scribal technique. These manuscripts are primarily used for study pourposes and the debtara must master a number of service books during his course of study which provide all necessary portions for the liturgical year

(The musician and transmission of religious tradition pg 243-248)

19th century musical manuscript containing school hymns of the Ma'raf

interior of the Bethlehem monastery in Ethiopia

The Ethiopian repertory contains about two dozen categories of chants called eretse Deggwa (meaning: chapters or portions) derived from a chantbooks known as the Deggwa. These chantbooks utilize a unique musical notation system known as melekett inorder to remind the singers of the music to which each piece should be sung. Each melekket consists of one or more members of the Ethiopic syllabary derived from the Deggwa, with which a particular melody is primarily associated; the melekett is placed immediately above words to which its associated melody should be sung.

(Oral and written transmission pg 59, 75, Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant pg 8)

There are 558 notational signs divided into three categories of selt (order) or zema (chant) with 287 signs in ge'ez order, 142 signs are in eraray, and 129 are in ezl. The melodies associated with the signs are the building blocks of the three chant forms and the smallest musical units discussed by Ethiopian Christian musicians. In addition to these is a group of 114 signs called bet, which indicate that indicate the family of melody within a mode to which a particular chant melody belongs. From this bet system is then derived the so-called 'halleluya tables' (Enqes'e Halleta) that indicate to which melody a halleluya should be sung. Besides these are the ten conventional signs termed yefidel qers that prescribe aspects of articulation, attack, decay, or placement of melodic patterns.

(Oral and written transmission pg 63, Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant pg 2-5)

example of a musical manuscript with the notation signs mentioned above

detail of an 18th century chantbook of Hymns for the Divine Office showing the notations described above.

18th century instructional manuscript; Directory for the Divine Office on the Rules of Chanting the Antiphonary

Besides the Deggwa are other hymn books such as the Ma'raf, which is a collection of hymns and chants for the year with musical notes, The Mawaset, which is a book of anthems for the whole year,  The Egzer Nags which are hymns for the saint's days, The Guba'e Malke, which is a collection of general hymns. Similar hymnals which are composed for special occasions include the Gebra Hemamat for Passion week, the Nagara Maryam for the festival of the virgin, and the Homilies which are read on Saint's days.

There are currently over 1,000 liturgical chant portions in major Ethiopian service books. Some overlap with others, some are subdivisions of larger and more varied categories, and some are called by different names in different manuscripts or in different Liturgical circumstances. They can be broadly organized by melodic group, or according to the days and times when the portions are sung over the course of the liturgical year.

(Oral and written transmission pg 76-79)

After mastering materials at the zēmā bēt, the debtara attends a 'aqwaqwam bēt, the school for liturgical dance and musical instruments. Ethiopian Christians use a lyre, two-headed kettledrum (kab), and a sistrum (senāsel) to accompany their liturgy. They also use prayer staffs (maqwamiyâ), which they lean upon during long hours prayer, to strike the floor during liturgy. And just as there are various schools of ecclesiastical music and different categories of chants, there are various regional styles of sacred dancing associated with different monasteries.

Both the musical instruments and the dances used in ecclesiastical music were derived from precedents in Ethiopian culture as well as influences in the northern Horn of Africa, and are explored in greater detail in the section on 'royal and secular music' below.

(A concept of Sacred music in Ethiopia pg 59-62)

Illustration from an 18th century Ethiopian manuscript psalter, depicting King David with a harp, Wake Forest University

18th century musical manuscript, Somä deggwa - Hymns for Lent

18th century musical manuscript; Guba’e - Hymns of Gathering

Historical accounts of Ethiopian ecclesiastical musicians and musical manuscripts.

Competence in Ethiopian chant performance is acquired by memorizing a repertory of phrases, learning the alphabetical abbreviations for these melodies, and developing the ability to recall and sing these phrases on new texts with the aid of the melekket and the yefidel qers. During liturgical celebrations, chants are performed straight from memory, as was the case with chants of Christian Europe such as the Gregorian chant and the Byzantine chant.

Individual singers serve to consolidate, perform and transmit their knowledge of the musical system and its notation to the next generation. Individual perfomers, especially the debtera, select precise deggwa portions to be perfomed on a given day, he copies his own deggwa, thus recording understanding of the tradition.

(Oral and written transmission pg 71-98)

The most significant historical figure in Ethiopian ecclesiastical music is the 6th century saint named Yared who was active during the reign of the Aksumite king Gebre Meskel (ca 558-84). The Ethiopian Senkessār (Lives of the Saints) records that a Saint Yared, composed all Ethiopian Christian liturgical melodies and invented a system of musical notation. Yared is the subject of an elaborate legend in which the saint lived at a time when the newly-Christian Aksumites didn't sing spiritual songs or hymns but only "murmured in a low voice" until God took up Yared to the spiritual realm and taught him the heavenly hymns through the voices of three birds.

There are many accounts describing this lengthy tradition, one of which can be found here:

https://ethiopianizm.com/home-of-origins/f/st-yared

(St. Yared in the Sǝmen Mountains, A concept of sacred music in Ethiopia pg 54)

Saint Yared, King Gäbrä Mäsqäl and the three heavenly birds from an undated Ethiopian manuscript, private collection

However, the evidence for church musicians don't appear until much later the 13th century when the oldest extant manuscripts containing chant texts were written, while the oldest complete chant book containing chants of almost all categories in Liturgical order comes from the 15th century. By this time the three orders/chants of ge'ez, ezl and araray had been developed and added to the 15th century chant books.

(Oral and written transmission pg 80, 88-89)

An Ethiopian royal chronicle records that 'at the time of King Geladewos [1540-59] there appeared Azzaj Gera and Azzaj Ragu'el, who were priests trained in zema. And they began to make rules for the melekket of the Deggwa and taught the priests of Tedbabe Maryam, which this prince had built. Another chronicle dating from the reign of Serse Dengel (1563-97) and crediting the clerics with revising it in the face of opposition within the church at that time. The notation system is thus dated to this period, with the yefidel qers and the melekket writing systems appearing in the 16th and 17th century.

(Oral and written transmission pg 72, 90-91)

The significance of the music in Ethiopian church ceremonies was remarked upon by 16th century Portuguese visitor Alvarez. The latter noted that when chief officiating priest with his two companions entered the interior of the church and brought out a painting of the Virgin, he placed it before his breast, while his assistants, who stood on either side of him, held lighted candles. The remainder of the clergy then began to chant, and, walking and even dancing in procession, rang bells and beat drums in time.

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 38)

Besides documentary evidence, oral traditions also point to the mid 16th century as a period of revival in ecclesiastical music. The pre-eminence of the musical style associated with the Bethlehem monastery is said to date from that period, precisely because it was the only place a notated Deggwa survived the Muslim invasion. Atleast one 16th century emperor is said to have decreed that Bethlehem monastery should be the place where Deggwa training would be centered. Many aspects of the modern notational system, as well as the hegemony of the Bethlehem musical style, date primarily from a period of renewal beginning after the Muslim invasion in the mid 16th century

(Oral and written transmission pg 73)

Developments in ecclesiastical music continued over the centuries. Written compilations of melodies and halleluya formulas appearing in the 17th century, while chant portions assigned to Lent were now collected in a separate book called the S'ome Deggwa by the 18th century. And over the 19th and 20th century, notation was done in greater detail and the first printed editions of the Deggwa were produced.

(Oral and written transmission pg 77-80)

Ethiopian church musicians (debtara) leading a church procession (left) and a hymn (right)

The Ethiopian Christian chant is an example of a musical system whose notation was never intended to replace oral transmission but to accentuate it, and the prominence of oral transmission  is best attested in the realm of zafan (secular music)

Ethiopian musical education, musicians and performance in secular contexts.

Zafan comprises the majority of Ethiopian musical traditions, and it varies greatly in structure and performative styles. Much of the secular music in the Horn is transmitted and performed orally by professional musicians, most of whom often inherit their profession from their parents.

The most notable among these are the royal musicians/minstrels of the Ethiopian heartland, known as azmari. In the past the azmari were itinerant and played a role as social critics, improvising sophisticated texts of praise or criticism directed at ruling monarchs, royals and other prominent members of Ethiopia's social hierachy. The azmari perform many song genres, including the shellala, which incite patriotism and fervor for battle, and the fukkara, which commemorate or praise prominent warriors. The country's minstrels, who roamed the land, included a fair number of women, some of whom acquired considerable reputations for their versification and their wit. Many women thus earned a living by making rhymes and attending funeral lamentations, where they would be paid in grain, cattle and cloth.

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 261-262, Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 207)

Another notable group of musicians are the lalibaloch, who tend to perform as husband and wife pair, and are said to be descended from individuals who suffered from leprosy. Early in the morning, the lalibaloch go from house to house singing songs of praise to garner alms. If they are not rewarded with food or money, they improvise songs criticizing the resident. Lalibaloch are also associated with strophic songs performed at weddings, as well as songs improvised for memorial services.

(Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 207)

The banquet hall in king Sahla Sellase's palace, Shewa, Ethiopia ca. 1852, with a group of royal musicians/minstrels on the front left

Musical instruments in Ethiopian history.

The most distinctive characteristic of Zafan music is the relationship of voices and instruments which sound in a texture called heterophony, where the performers sing or play the same melody together but with slightly different elaborations. The vocal and instrumental styles of the Ethiopian heartland often have a nasal sound and in general, melodies are heavily ornamented.

In addition to their distinctive rhythms, secular dances often have movement styles associated with different regions and ethnic groups. Some dance styles, such as the dance eskesta, which uses a wide range of shoulder motions, are closely associated with Amhara culture, while a wide range of foot motifs and other motions characterize Oromo circle and line dances.

(Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 207)

Accompanying the music performances are several distinctive instruments, some of which are of significant antiquity. The most prominent of which is the above-mentioned lyre which is played by strumming strings together or by plucking individual strings. It was traditionally associated with King David and was reputedly often played by the Ethiopian royalty and higher priesthood. The large lyre called the bagana is exclusively used in ecclesiastical music, while the krar is used for both secular and spiritual occasions.

Another string instrument of note is the masengo (fiddle), which is comprised of one string tied to a wooden box. This instrument is mostly played by the azmari, who use it during many festivals and rituals such as mourning occasions, weddings, possession rituals, baptisms, and occasionally at the celebration of Epiphany (Zemqat).

(Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 210-211)

Illustration of King David with harp from an 18th century Ethiopian psalter

musician playing an Ethiopian begena or King David's harp in the city of Axum or Aksum, ca. 1930

Easter Celebration, Mensa, Ethiopia, ca. 1865 showing musicians playing flutes

Besides the string instruments are wind instruments, most notably the flute (embilta) and the trumpet. Flutes are usually made of bamboo or reed, and are often end-blown without a duct. Some of the flutes have two to four fingerholes to adjust the sound, while others have no fingerholes and their melody is generated in a group using the hocket technique. Trumpets in Ethiopia included both the side-blown and end-blown types, and were often recognized as symbols of authority; such as the malakkat, that was used in royal communication and social gatherings.

(Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 210)

Lastly are percussion instruments such as drums (nagarit), xylophones, sistrum, bells and rattles. Among the rattles, the hand-held metallic sistrum (tsanatsel) is, together with the wooden prayer stick (maqqwamiya) and the large two-headed drum (kabaro), used in ecclesiastical settings for accompanying group singing and dancing.

(Ethiopia: history culture and challenges pg 211)

Cantors at aristocratic wedding, Abyssinia, ca. 1893 showing musicians with a drum and a lyre

Brass Sistrum from Ethiopia, early 20th century, brooklyn museum

Lyre of probable Ethiopian origin, met museum

Lyre of probable ethiopian origin, met museum

A fiddle (masenqo) from the 20th century, met museum

Historical accounts of Ethiopian secular musicians

The significance of music in Ethiopian secular contexts is evidenced by its frequent mention in descriptions of Ethiopian courtly life and society, both by internal observers and external visitors. Such accounts usually contain mentions of distinctive songs, dances, instruments and performers that enable us to reconstruct the antiquity of the Zafan music in history.

Drums and music associated with them was of particular significance to the Ethiopian royal sphere. For example, provinces of the empire such as Tigray, were divided into districts known as addi nagarit or "drum lands" so designated because their chief had the right of having drums played before him when he travelled in procession or marched to battle. The Portuguese visitor Alvares observed that when a chief was summoned to the court of the emperor, the chief' retinue would appear "with great pomp, with kettle drums and other musical instruments sounding".

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 163, 20)

Other 19th century visitors also observed the significance of musical instruments in royal communication. In times of emergency, or whenever it was desired to summon the population to arms, drums would be beaten in market-places throughout the area of mobilization. The drummer began in very slow tempo, and would then gradually speed up the tempo, after which he would proclaim the ruler's decree regarding tax collection, war, ceremonies and other occasions.

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 153, 182)

'Natives in an Abyssinian village sound the war drums to gather troops for their Emperor Haile Selassie to fight the invading Italians, Ethiopia, mid 1930s.'

Another account by the Portuguese chronicler Almeida mentions the elaborate installation ceremony which ended with the court musicians striking up with their kettledrums, trumpets and shalms, and the musketeers firing a salvo. This similar pomp was what usually followed a victorious battle as well as installation ceremonies, such as the installation of Sarsa Denegl in 1609, where a contemporary observer described a royal fusillade marked by volleys of musketfire as well as "the noise of trumpets, Kettle Drums, weights and all other Musical Instruments."

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 28)

The 19th century visitor Nathaniel Pearce writes that praise songs were composed by the minstrels to signal their esteem or contempt for one person more than another. A chief and his soldiers would be "obliged to listen" to these compositions "without shewing their anger," for it would "only make matters worse to fall out with the women". One praise song contained the following words: "Give the Badinsah [i.e. Ras Walda Sellase] breeches, and he is a lion: where is the man that will dare to hold his shield to him?"

Pearce observes that "Even in the case of an ordinary soldier who had killed a lion, elephant, wild buffalo or human enemy, the young girls of the town would plague his master until he perhaps gave them a cow." The women also perfomed in religious ceremonies such as Christmas and Easter, and at funerals and weddings,  they "clapped their hands, and uttered occasional shrill cries, while rhythmically swaying their bodies and jerking their necks to the beat of the music."

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 259, 262)

Group of women at an aristocratic marriage, Ethiopia, ca. 1893

Groomsmen at an Abyssinian wedding, Adwa, Ethiopia ca, 1884.

Women appear to have dominated the Zafan music just as men dominated Zema music. According to a visitor in 1817, while women weren't allowed into the holy precincts of the churches and monasteries, they formed themselves into different parties in the vicinity of the church, where they sang, danced, and clapped their hands to the accompaniment of a drum beaten at both ends by a girl who carried it on a strap around her neck. Pictures and all the various riches of the church were also brought out for the populace to do them honour.  The priests gracefully danced and sang, while the women snouted and ululated, and the trumpeters made "all the noise" they possibly could.

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 188-189)

The 19th century visitor Nathaniel Pearce mentions that the "best poet" in the country, in his day, was a middleaged woman called Wallata Iyasus. Born at Gondar, and the daughter of a man from Tegre, she had studied poetry from infancy, and, though in possession of a large estate, attended all mourning ceremonies at Adwa "for no other purpose than to distinguish herself." Many "great men" were said to have asked for her hand in marriage, but she could never be persuaded to accept any of their proposals.

(A social history of Ethiopia pg 262)

A travelling minstrel and his audience, ca. 1894

Ethiopian Harp player, ca. 1888

Conclusion:

The above overview of the history of Ethiopian musical traditions is far from exhaustive, but it outlines the most important aspects of Ethiopia's rich musical heritage, from the cultural institutions that produced it to the musicians that perfomed it and the instruments they utilised.

Furthermore, the brief outline on Ethiopia's notation system reveals its  development in a specifically Ethiopian context and reflects particularly Ethiopian values concerning orality, flexibility and authority. This unqiue notation system is  an important invention that highlights the overlooked contribution of Africans to the history of music not just as perfomers of music but also as writers who preserved and transmitted their rich artistic heritage in very innovative ways.

A party in Tigre, Ethiopia, 19th century.

References:

Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant edited by Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Peter Jeffery

A Song of Longing: An Ethiopian Journey by Kay Kaufman Shelemay

A Social History of Ethiopia: The Northern and Central Highlands from Early Medieval Times to the Rise of Emperor Téwodros II by Richard Pankhurst

Ethiopia: history culture and challenges by Siegbert Uhlig

Zēmā: A Concept of Sacred Music in Ethiopia by Kay Kaufman Shelemay

The musician and transmission of religious tradition by Kay Kaufman

Oral and Written Transmission in Ethiopian Christian Chant by Kay Kaufman

St. Yared in the Sǝmen Mountains of northern Ethiopia: The Ethiopian Orthodox and Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jewish) religious sites by Bar Kribus and Sophia Dege-Müller

Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant by Gabe Scelta

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