Baganda music

In addition to voice, a range of instruments are used, including the Amadinda, the Akadinda xylophones, the Ennanga harp, the Etongoli lyre, drums, and the Kadongo (plural "budongo") lamellophone.

Amadinda, akadinda, ennanga, and entongoli, as well as several types of drums, are used in the courtly music of the Kabaka, the king of Buganda.

The kadongo, on the other hand, was more recently introduced to Baganda music, dating to the early 20th century.

Despite this, the notation (created by European ethnomusicologists) used for the music denotes the deepest tone as "1" and the highest as "5".

In the Kadongo lamellophone, metal rings are put around the lamellas to create a buzzing sound.

In the ennanga harp, scales of a kind of goana are fixed on the instrument in such a way that the vibrating strings will touch it.

Instead, perceptually, the music seems to consist of two to three pitch levels in which irregular melodic/rhythmic inherent patterns can be heard.

The ennanga has only eight strings, so parallel octaves can only be played within a restricted interval, but the general compositional principles applying to the xylophone music are the same in the chord instruments.

However, they might be present for the Luganda speaker even if not made explicit in the text, adding an aesthetic level to the music that is only accessible to someone knowing conversant in the language.

Moreover, mnemonic phrases are often used to memorize the sometimes long and irregular sequences of notes in xylophone playing.

The amadinda, like other types of south Ugandan Xylophones, is played by hitting the bars at the end with a stick.

The correct way of playing the amadinda is called Okusengejja, literally "to strain, to filter, to clarify, to sort things out".

There are several ways of playing Amadinda which are considered mistakes: Miko (singular Muko) are transpositions of a piece by one step of the scale (up or down).

Although in the middle of the xylophone, the structure of the piece remains the same, the movement patterns of the musicians are changed, and the okukoonera part may become completely different.

[1][2] The Embaire was described by Mark Stone, a lecturer at Oakland University and a former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at Makerere University during the 1996–1997 school year in these words: The Embaire is the most communal and most powerful xylophone tradition I know, a tradition that I am fortunate to teach regularly to my students at Oakland University in a number of classes[3][4] Embaire keys are made from ensambiya wood (Bignoniaceae: Markhamia platycalyx),[5] and played by beating the ends of the keys with sticks from a heavier wood called enzo (Rutaceae: Teclea nobilis[6]).

In contrast to other parts of Uganda, Several impressive music groups with embaire xylophones are located relatively easily in Iganga district, Busoga.

This striking similarity provides some evidence that the principles underlying both forms of music might go back to ancient times.