Begena: Eritrea musical instrument

The begena is an Eritrean string musical instrument that has ten strings. The musical instrument belongs to the lyre family of musical instruments. According to the oral tradition, Menelik brought the musical instrument to the region from Israel, where David performed on the instrument to soothe King Saul’s nerves and heal him of insomnia. The real origin of the musical instrument remains in doubt, but local manuscript portrays the musical instrument at the beginning of the 15^th century.

source: begena.de

The musical instrument is known as the instrument of the noble men, monks and the upper class members of the society and played by both men and women. The begena was used mainly as an accompaniment instrument during the meditation and prayer. Though commonly performed in the home, the musical instrument is sometimes performed in the framework of festive ceremonies. During lent, the musical instrument is usually heard on the radio and around the churches. The begena is always accompanied by the singing voice. The singer could compose his or her own texts or they may be taken from the verse of the bible; it could be from the book of proverbs, or from the book of Qine, or from a collection of love poems and proverbs. The subject matter of the song could be futility of life, the inevitability of death by humans, it could be about the saints, the mores, morality, praises to God or prayer. The duration of the song differs according to the text, the audience who are present, and the persistence of the performer.

Because of the sacred role of the musical instrument in the society, the musical instrument is not very common to find. Meditation and prayer are so private, personal endeavors, and hearsay opines that the begena is performed by very few member of the society and is a dying art.

The begena has ten strings. Meanwhile, various musicians use different numbers of the strings to perform the musical instrument. For example, begena teacher known as Memhr Sisay Demissae uses the ten strings of the instrument to teach and play the instrument, while some other player of the musical instrument use five or six strings of the instrument while playing. The left hand is used in the plucking of the strings.

When all the ten strings of the begena are plucked, one method of tuning the musical instrument is to tune each of pair of strings to one of the pitches in a pentatonic scale. When using five strings of the begena only the first, the fourth, the sixth, the eighth and the tenth strings of the instrument are tuned to produce sound. While performing the musical instrument using six strings, the left hands of the performer plucks strings one, three, four, six, and eight and ten. The pointing finger of the hand plucks the third and the fourth strings while the other finger of the hand stay in charge of con trolling one string of the instrument each. The remaining strings on the musical instrument are used for the finger rests or stops after the strings of the instrument have been plucked, permitting the plucked string of the musical instrument to vibrate appropriately.

The musical instrument may be performed with the use f a system called ‘girf’, whereas, a plectrum that is produced of horn or wood can be used to pluck the ten strings of the instrument. The musical instrument is characterized by a very specific buzzing tune, because of the U-shaped leather pieces that is placed between each strings of the instrument and thee bridge of the instrument. The thong for each string is adjusted down and up along the bridge of the instrument so that the string repeatedly vibrates against the edge of the bridge, when it is plucked.