Music in Rwanda

Music has always played a huge role in the social and political economy of Rwanda. Through poetry, music and dance, the Rwandan soul finds its complete and original expression. Music performances are present in all important manifestations of family and national life.

Traditional Rwandan music has variations such as vocal, vocal – instrumental, vocal – instrumental accompanied by dancing and instrumental only. However vocal music has been always predominant amongst the rest.

The musical instruments that are commonly used are grouped into four categories according to the sound produced: idiophones, aerophones, chordophones, membranophones.  

Idiophones are instruments that create sounds primarily by the vibration of instrument itself without the use air flow: ankle bells (amayugi) for dancers, rattle (ikinyuguri) for rituals, lamellophone (ikembe) accompanying narrative songs.

Aerophones, a class for musical instruments in which a vibrating mass of air produces the initial sound: horns (amakondera, ihembe), flute (umwirongi), whistle (ifirimbi).
The audio played, is from the flute

Chordophones mostly used in Rwanda are musical bow (umuduri) accompanying narrative songs, zither (inanga), a very popular instrument tuned to a pentatonic scale with songs on history, cult and love, fiddle (iningiri)used to follow and to double the vocal melodic line.

Rwandan membranophones are musical instruments that comprise of different drums usually played as an ensemble of 8 to 12 drums. The instruments provide rhythm to dancers.

From the colonial era, Rwandan music was influenced by Gregorian music from the Roman Catholic Church, Western music and modern music following globalisation trends. However, nowadays some contemporary artists are creating a blend of traditional rhythms to contemporary music.