Amadinda

The Amadinda (rarely also Madinda ) is a spar xylophone with twelve wooden sound plates, which is native to the Kingdom of Buganda , a province of Uganda - mainly at the royal court , but also in the households of influential and wealthy Ganda . The instrument is tuned in a "tempered pentatonic ".

The wood for the sound bars comes from the Insambya tree ( Markhamia platycalyx or lutea ). In the middle of their undersides there are usually cavities that are created when tuning the records. Two banana trunks usually serve as the base of the instrument. The sound bars lie across and are separated from one another by small branches that are stuck in the banana trunks.

Numerous compositions have survived for the unaccompanied sounding Amadinda, which are traditionally performed by three players; each of them has two mallets . Two of the musicians sit opposite one another on the long sides of the instrument and each play tone sequences in parallel octaves . The interplay is, however, offset like a zipper, whereby each player feels that their own notes fall "on the beat". The music is based neither on a common measure nor on a common beat . The part of the third musician is limited to playing the top two records, the amakoonezi .

literature

Gerhard Kubik : The Amadinda Music of Buganda , in: Music in Africa. Ed. Artur Simon. Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin 1983, pp. 139–165.
That. Xylophone game in southern Uganda . In the S. To understand African music. Lit-Verlag, Berlin 2004. pp. 141–179 (2nd edition)
That. Theory, performance practice and composition techniques of Buganda court music. A guide to composition in an East African musical culture . In: For György Ligeti . The presentations of the Ligeti Congress Hamburg 1988. Letters. Peter Petersen. Laaber, Laaber 1991, pp. 23-162.

Discographic notes

Evaristo Muyinda : Music of the Baganda (Pan, 1991).

Individual evidence

↑ If the instrument is used in court music, especially accompanied by the entamiivu drums, it is called entaala , otherwise always amadinda ; see. Kubik To Understand African Music , p. 158
^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Ed. Stanley Sadie. Macmillan, London 1980. Uganda article, Buganda section.
↑ Kubik, Die Amadinda-Musik von Buganda , p. 141. The tuning of the instrument caused Arthur Morris Jones to speculate about an Indonesian influence on East African music.
^ Encyclopaedia Britannica . Article “African music”, section “Interlocking”. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
↑ "A given scheme of metric reference points, a series of absolute reference points to which every musician would feel bound, does not correspond to the concept" of Amadinda music. Of the three players who play the instrument, “everyone initially feels their own part as the center of the whole.” - Kubik, Die Amadinda-Musik von Buganda , p. 146.

[1] If the instrument is used in court music, especially accompanied by the entamiivu drums, it is called entaala , otherwise always amadinda ; see. Kubik To Understand African Music , p. 158

[2] The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Ed. Stanley Sadie. Macmillan, London 1980. Uganda article, Buganda section.

[3] Kubik, Die Amadinda-Musik von Buganda , p. 141. The tuning of the instrument caused Arthur Morris Jones to speculate about an Indonesian influence on East African music.

[4] Encyclopaedia Britannica . Article “African music”, section “Interlocking”. Retrieved November 13, 2010.

[5] "A given scheme of metric reference points, a series of absolute reference points to which every musician would feel bound, does not correspond to the concept" of Amadinda music. Of the three players who play the instrument, “everyone initially feels their own part as the center of the whole.” - Kubik, Die Amadinda-Musik von Buganda , p. 146.