Music of Africa

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An African woman, wearing native garments, performs during a visit from participants in the West Africa Training Cruise 1983. Photo from April 1984 All Hands Magazine.

Africa is a continent with a wide range of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. A general description of African Music is not possible as there is no distinctly pan-African music, only shared forms of musical expression. Nevertheless, there are regional similarities between dissimilar groups, as well as popular trends known across the continent.

1 Scope of the article
2 Distinguishing features
3 Traditional music
4 Popular music
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Scope of the article

This article focuses mainly on sub-Saharan music. In comparative studies of music and dance forms from around the world, the music of northern Africa and parts of the Sahara are more closely connected to Middle Eastern music than to those of sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, the music and dance forms of the black diaspora many like the Caribbean music and Latin American music genres like rumba and Salsa music, as well as african American music were founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken there by African slaves.

[edit] Distinguishing features

[edit] Rhythmic complexity

Sub-Saharan music has as its distinguishing feature a rhythmic complexity that has spread to other regions, especially to the Americas. The remarkable aspect of African polyrhythm is the discernible coherence of the resultant rhythmic pattern.

[edit] Scales and Polyphony

Scale systems vary between regions, there are diatonic scales, but other forms, e.g. pentatonic scales are also widespread. The intervals are often different from those found in European music.

Pitch polyphony exists in the form of parallel intervals (generally thirds, fourths, and fifths), overlapping choral antiphony and solo-choral response, and occasional simultaneous independent melodies.

[edit] Musical instruments

Besides using the voice, a wide array of musical instruments is used. African musical instruments include a wide array of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells as well melodic instruments like string instruments (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-liker instruments like the Kora as well as fiddles), many types of xylophones and lamellaphones such as the mbira and different types of wind instrument like flutes and trumpets.

The wide array of drums used in African traditional music include tama talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and different types of drums are often called engoma or ngoma in Central and Southern Africa.

During colonial times, European instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, and guitars were adopted by many African musicians; their sounds were integrated into the traditional patterns and are widely used in African popular music. helo

[edit] Timbre

In many African music cultures, there is a preference for "noisy" timbres. In some lamellaphones, for instance, metal rings are put around the lamellas to create a buzzing sound. Devices to create a buzzing sound also exist in string instruments. For example, on 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. This gives a crackling timbre to the sound. Another example are membranes made from spider webs attached to the openings of calabash resonators in some types of xylophones. In singing, one can often also meet raspy or rough timbres very unlike the voice ideal of western music.

[edit] Relationship to language

Many African Languages are tonal languages. In many African cultures, this leads to a close connection between music and language. 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 language can often perceive a text or texts in the music. This effect also forms the basis of drum languages (talking drums).

[edit] Relationship to dance

The treatment of "music" and "dance" as separate art forms is an 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 the semantic fields of the European concepts of "music" and "dance". So there is one word for both music and dance (the exact meaning of the concepts may differ from culture to culture).

For example, in Kiswahili, the word "ngoma" may be translated as "drum", "dance", "dance event", "dance celebration" or "music", depending on the context. Each of these translations is incomplete.

Therefore, from an intracultural point of view, African music and African dance must be viewed in very close connection. The classification of the phenomena of this area of culture into "music" and "dance" is foreign to many African cultures.

There is a close connection between the polyrhythmic structure of African music and the polycentric structure of many African dances, in which different parts of the body are moved according to different rhythmical components.

[edit] Traditional music

A lot of traditional African music is or was performed by professional musicians. Some of it is courtly music or sacral music. Therefore, the term "folk" music is not always appropriate. Nevertheless, both the terms "folk music" and "traditional music" can be found in the literature.

African folk music and traditional music is mostly functional in nature. There are, for example, many different kinds of work songs, ceremonial or religious music and courtly music performed at royal courts, but none of these are performed outside of their intended social context.

Music is highly functional in African ethnic life, accompanying birth, marriage, hunting, and even political activities. Much music exists solely for entertainment, ranging from narrative songs to highly stylized musical theater. Similarities with other cultures, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern, can be ascribed primarily to the spread of Islam.

[edit] Popular music

Genres of popular African Music include:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Tracey, Hugh. (1961). The evolution of African music and its function in the present day. Johannesburg: Institute for the Study of Man in Africa.
Lomax, Alan: Folk song style and culture. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Publication No. 88, Washingthon 1968.
Lomax, Alan, Bertenieff, Irmgaard, Paulay, Forrestine: Choreometrics: a method for the study or cross-cultural pattern in film. Resarch Film, Vol 6, No. 6, Göttingen 1969.
Koetting, James T (1992). “Africa/Ghana”, Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples, Second edition, New York: Schirmer Books, 67-104. ISBN 0-02-872602-2.
Kubik, Gerhard Zum Verstehen Afrikanischer Musik, Aufsätze, Reihe: Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd. 7, 2., aktualisierte und ergänzte Auflage, 2004, 448 S., ISBN 3-8258-7800-7 (in German language)
Simon, Artur (Ed.), "Musik in Afrika", (Staatliche Museen) Berlin 1983 (in German language)
Bender, Wolfgang: Sweet Mother - Moderne afrikanische Musik, 1985, Trickster Verlag, München. ISBN 3-923804-10-5 (in German language)