There are eight characteristicsthat define African music: Polyrhythms, ostinato, the use of percussion, background shimmer, close connection with the musicand language, participatory nature of the arts, a close connection with the performing arts, responsorial form. Click to see full answer.
What are the important features of African music?
- there is a strong sense of pulse throughout supported by the timeline or played on the dundun
- the played rhythms are repetitive
- polyrhythms are frequently played in African drumming - the figure is an example of a polyrhythm
Which musical features of African?
What are the 8 types of African music?
- Afrobeat. Fela Kuti created Afrobeat by fusing traditional Nigerian music, jazz and highlife.
- Apala. Apala is a percussion-based style of the Muslim Yoruba people in Nigeria, West Africa.
- Assiko. Assiko is a rhythmic dance from Cameroon.
- Bikutsi.
- Benga music.
- Bongo Flava (Tanzania)
- Cabo-Love (Cape Verde)
- Chimurenga music.
What are the different types of African music?
African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans.Their origins are in musical forms that arose out of the historical condition of slavery that characterized the lives of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. Some of the most popular music types today, such as rock and roll, country, rock, funk ...
What are facts about African music?
Why We Love African-American Music Appreciation Month
- It’s a celebration of history There’s much history attached to many of the genres in the African-American music industry. ...
- It’s a celebration of diversity There’s unity in diversity. ...
- It’s a celebration of music Music, just like food, is universally loved and needed. ...
What are the characteristics of music?
The five characteristics of music are sound (overtone, duration, amplitude, pitch, timbre), melody, rhythm, structure or form, expression, texture, and melody.
What are the characteristics of the traditional Western African music?
Four of its most important characteristics are its use of percussion, polyrhythms, call-and-response singing styles, and improvisation. Outside of this list, there are hundreds of unique cultures in West Africa and each has its own variation in music traditions.
What are the 8 characteristics of African music?
There are eight characteristics that define African music: Polyrhythms, ostinato, the use of percussion, background shimmer, close connection with the music and language, participatory nature of the arts, a close connection with the performing arts, responsorial form.
What is the texture of African music?
Texture. African music, from the communal nature of African society, is marked by the simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches. Melody and rhythm are interwoven within this dense structure of various instrumental and metric combinations.
What are the characteristics of Western music?
Some common characteristics, which are not always present and are not only specific to this period, include:Fewer lyrical melodies than other periods.Dissonant Harmonies.Complex rhythms.Percussiveness.Greater use of percussion,brass,and woodwind.Uses synthetic and electronic sounds.
What is the difference between Western and non Western music?
Non-Western music may have no harmony at all, or it may base its harmonies on completely different scale systems than Western music. Though non-Western music is primarily vocal in nature, some cultures have also developed unique independent families of instruments.
What is African traditional music?
African music includes the genres Jùjú, Fuji, Highlife, Makossa, Kizomba, Afrobeat and others. The music and dance of the African diaspora, formed to varying degrees on African musical traditions, include American music like Dixieland jazz, blues, jazz, and many Caribbean genres, such as calypso (see kaiso) and soca.
What is West African music called?
Funana. Music style and dance from Cape Verde based on the accordeon. Gbema (Liberia) Highlife. Highlife is a genre from Ghana and popular in all of English-speaking West Africa.
What is the concept of music in Africa?
The concept of music in Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa bears a difference from other regions and cultures. The roles of music and dance are tightly woven together in sub-Saharan Africa, and music intersects with every aspect of life, expresses life through the medium of sound.
Why is African music important?
African music is often used to transmit messages and ideas; and to record and recount historical events. Consequently, the meaning of the texts and their relation to the music especially important.
What is the most commonly used form in African musical traditions?
The most frequently used form in African musical traditions consists of the use of ostinato, or repeated short musical phrases with the accompaniment of melodic-rhythmic patterns. For example, in the call and response method, a leader usually sings a phrase with a chorus singing back a response.
What is repetition in African music?
Repetition is use as an organizing principle on top of which improvisation is built. African music is mostly performed by groups of musicians, frequently employing polyphony, polyrhythm, and a conversational style of music and interlocking. Gospel singers, N'Gaoundere, Cameroon.
How has music changed African society?
As African society has changed in response to the forces of colonization, independence, and globalization, the role of music changed as well, adapting to the new situation in which the people of Africa find themselves.
What is traditional music?
When discussing African music, the term "traditional music" is used to refer to the characteristics of African music prior to the colonization of the continent by European countries, which was most widespread during the late nineteenth century . This pre-colonial period was full of social changes and dynamism.
How does music help people in Africa?
African music also helps to connect people together in a variety of ways , strengthening the fabric of the community, which in turn reinforces people's commitment to support each other and the community , toward mutual health and prosperity. Another crucial role of music in Africa is as a mode of communication.
What is African music?
Author of Theory of African Music ( 2 vol.) and others. African music, the musical sounds and practices of all indigenous peoples of Africa, including the Berber in the Sahara and the San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoin (Hottentot) in Southern Africa. The music of European settler communities and that of Arab North Africa are not included in ...
How did African music shape the world?
African music as it is known today was also shaped by changes in the ecology of the continent, which drove people into other lands, thus producing changes in their art. With the drying of the Sahara, for example, populations tended to shift southward.
What was the Sahara's aquatic lifestyle?
During this period, human occupation of the Sahara greatly increased, and , along rivers and small lakes, Neolithic, or New Stone Age, cultures with a so-called aquatic lifestyle extended from the western Sahara into the Nile River valley.
Why is African music so puzzling?
As a result of migrations and the exchange of musical fashions both within Africa and with foreign cultures, specific traits of African music often show a puzzling distribution. Extremely distant areas in Africa may have similar, even identical, traits, while adjacent areas may have quite different styles.
Where did likembe music originate?
At the beginning of the 20th century the likembe distribution area extended farther to the northeast into Uganda, where the Nilotic Alur, Acholi, and Lango adopted it.
What were the buffer zones between the European slave traders?
Between the European slave traders established on the coast and the hinterland areas were buffer zones inhabited by African “merchant tribes, ” such as the Ovimbundu of Angola, who are still remembered by eastern Angolan peoples as vimbali, or collaborators of the Portuguese.
What is the genre of music in Kenya?
11. Benga. Benga is a popular African music genre that evolved in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, between the late 1940s and late 1960s. Like many music genres of the region, benga music is a fusion between the music of Luo people of Kenya and influences from music around Africa and the world, including Cuba, South Africa, Congo, and more.
What is Chimurenga music?
Chimurenga is a popular music genre with Zimbabwean origins. The most notable name in the music genre is Thomas Mapfumo, which introduced the Chimurenga melodies to the world with his band, the Blacks Unlimited.
What is the rhythm of African music?
African music relies heavily on fast-paced, upbeat rhythmic drum playing found all over the continent, though some styles, such as the Township music of South Africa do not make much use of the drum and nomadic groups such as the Maasai do not traditionally use drums. Elsewhere the drum is the sign of life: its beat is the heartbeat of the community.
What is sub-saharan African music?
Sub-Saharan African music is characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest" that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory , so that Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as constituting one main system. C. K. Ladzekpo also affirms the profound homogeneity of approach. West African rhythmic techniques carried over the Atlantic were fundamental ingredients in various musical styles of the Americas: samba, forró, maracatu and coco in Brazil, Afro-Cuban music and Afro-American musical genres such as blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, funk, soul, reggae, hip hop, and rock and roll were thereby of immense importance in 20th century popular music. The drum is renowned throughout Africa.
What is the rhythmic structure of Africa?
African rhythmic structure is entirely divisive in nature but may divide time into different fractions at the same time, typically by the use of hemiola or three-over-two (3:2), which Novotney has called the foundation of all West African polyrhythmic textures.
Why is it a mistake for Westerners to listen to African music in the same way in which they would listen to
Because African music is not set apart from its social and cultural context , it is a mistake for Westerners to listen to African music in the same way in which they would listen to Western (European) music.
What is cross-rhythm in music?
3 and 2 belong to a single Gestalt. Cross-rhythm is the basis for much of the music of the Niger–Congo peoples, speakers of the largest language family in Africa.
What is the role of the double bell in Africa?
Each region of Africa has developed a different style of double bell but the basic technology of bell-making is the same all over the continent, as is often the bell's role as time keeper . The South American agogo is probably a descendant from these African bells.
What are the characteristics of the Sub-Saharan African approach to rhythm?
Among the characteristics of the Sub-Saharan African approach to rhythm are syncopation and cross-beats which may be understood as sustained and systematic polyrhythms, an ostinato of two or more distinct rhythmic figures, patterns or phrases at once.
Musical Instruments
Drum Gallery
- Signal drum, Ndebu, southeast Senegal (West Africa)
- Drums of an African band in Germany.
- Drummer for a Rwandan dance troupe.
- Drum found near Lake Tengrela, Banfora, Burkina Faso.
Regional Styles
- As has been mentioned, North Africa—Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco—has a distinctive musical style, different from the southern regions; this music bears a strong Arab and Islamicstamp thanks to medieval Islamic expansion. Egypt, in particular, has deep musical connections to the rest of the Arab world, being one of the epicenters of Arab classical and popu…
Music and Culture
- Relationship to language
Many African languages are tonal languages, leading to a close connection between music and language in many African cultures. In singing, the tonal pattern or the text puts some constraints on the melodic patterns. On the other hand, in instrumental music a native speaker of a languag… - Relationship to dance
The treatment of "music" and "dance" as separate art forms is a European idea. In many African languages there is no concept corresponding exactly to these terms. For example, in many Bantu languages, there is one concept that might be translated as 'song' and another that covers both t…
Popular Music
- The popular African music refers to the music with compositions started during the colonization and after the colonization era.
Gallery
- This young man is playing the k'ra, a traditional instrument of Ethiopia. The name is very similar to the kora of West Africa.
- African beaded calabash rattles for sale in New York.
- Cow bells, a type of African percussion instrument.
- These dancers, at the Swazi Cultural Village, South Africa, are wearing rattles on their ankles.
References
- Kirkegaard, Annemette, and Mai Palmberg. Playing with Identities in Contemporary Music in Africa. Uppsala: Nordic African Institute, 2002. ISBN 9789171064967.
- Lomax, Alan, and Edwin E. Erickson. Folk Song Style and Culture. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1968.
- Peek, Philip M., and Kwesi Yankah. African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2…
- Kirkegaard, Annemette, and Mai Palmberg. Playing with Identities in Contemporary Music in Africa. Uppsala: Nordic African Institute, 2002. ISBN 9789171064967.
- Lomax, Alan, and Edwin E. Erickson. Folk Song Style and Culture. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1968.
- Peek, Philip M., and Kwesi Yankah. African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 9780415939331.
- Schmidt-Jones, Catherine. "Talking Drums." Connexions.January 14, 2008. Retrieved July 11, 2008.
