amadinda

play amadinda!

This page has been adapted with permission from the play amadinda teaching pack written by Peter Cooke with Albert Ssempeke.

"The amadinda xylophone tradition is one of the most interesting musical styles in Africa. A knowledge of it gives real insights into some basic features of music in Africa south of the Sahara and it is one of the styles more easily learned because of the essential simplicity of the individual parts of many of the pieces and because the pieces are mainly of fixed form - like most Western compositions - and require no knowledge of rules for improvisation. Unlike much xylophone music in West Africa it is not a solo art and learning to play even the simplest pieces gives one a heightened sense of musical time and an excellent training at listening to ones's co-performers.

Using a simple number notation, now commonly used by African musicologists, in conjunction with the cassette tape of examples you can learn a small sample of a fascinating musical repertory.

Amadinda ("sounding keys") is the name given by the Ganda people of central Uganda to their twelve key instrument. The Ganda pitch system is rather different from ours, for the scale is built up from steps of large tones which are larger than the European whole tone - in fact to European ears some of the steps will sound closer to a minor third in size. If you play on the black keys of the piano you will get an approximation to the scale of amadinda, and you can use European school xylophones if you restrict yourself to any five note scale that consists of whole tones and minor thirds. Keys are numbered from the bottom up.

The two essential instrumental parts are called okunaga ("to lead in") and okwawula ("to divide"). These parts are played each in octaves. The third part is called okukoonera ("to knock"). For simplicity we shall use the terms Starter, Mixer and Binder (as in Lois Anderson's writings on the amadinda). The okukoonera (Binder) part is played by a third musician on the top two keys of the instrument only.

Now you should be ready for your first real piece!

Olutalo olw'e Nsiinsi - The Battle of Nsinsi

This is a well known historical song often regarded as a beginners' piece because of the brevity of the basic pattern and the repetitive nature of the individual parts. The song dates from around 1800 and refers to a terrible battle between Kabaka Jjunju and his rival brother prince Semakookiro. During the bloodiest of fighting the Jjunju was slain and Semakookiro became the new King of Buganda.

In this song the Starter part appears to group itself in four parts beginning on note 3 - 323 222 323 311 (or in two groups of six notes beginning at the same place). The other part is even easier - 541 541 541 etc. For the first song the complete pattern is additionally given in a single row above the song texts overleaf so that one can see what is produced when the two principal parts interlock properly.

For more information buy the play amadinda teaching pack!

In the booklet:

• History and musical style
• Preliminary exercises
• The musical structure
• Transcriptions of 13 songs, including one akadinda song
• Making your own amadinda xylophone
• Bibliography

On the tape:

• Parts for amadinda and singing recorded separately
• Performances by Albert Ssempeke of ennanga harp, amadinda and drums, endere flute and drums
• Field recording of royal akadinda ensemble made in 1987

The author:

Peter Cooke has taught ethnomusicology at the University of Edinburgh for nearly 20 years. He first developed an interest and expertise in the music of Uganda when teaching in Uganda during the period 1964-1968.

The performer:

Albert Ssempeke, who died in 2006 worked as a musician and teacher at The National Theatre, Kampala. He was formerly a member of the Kabaka's flute band, and became an extremely versatile master-musician, playing an important role in Uganda's former national ensemble Heartbeat of Africa. His own team of wedding musicians and dancers ("Aboluganda Kwagalana" meaning brothers should love each other) is regarded as one of the best groups in the country.