Yoruba music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The music of the Yoruba people of Nigeria is best known for an extremely advanced drumming tradition, especially using the dundun hourglass tension drums. Yoruba folk music became perhaps the most prominent kind of West African music in Afro-Latin and Caribbean musical styles. Yorùbá music left an especially important influence on the music used in Lukumi practice and the music of Cuba [1].
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[edit] Folk music
Ensembles using the dundun play a type of music that is also called dundun. These ensembles consist of various sizes of tension drums along with kettledrums (gudugudu). The leader of a dundun ensemble is the iyalu who uses the drum to "talk" by imitating the tonality of Yoruba. Much of Yoruba music is spiritual in nature, and is devoted to the Orisas of Yoruba mythology. See also: Yoruba folk opera.
[edit] Folk instruments
- agbe: a shaker
- ashiko: a cone-shaped drum
- apesi:
- agidibo: a sort of thumb piano
- bata: a well decorated traditional drum of many tones
- dundun: comprising of "iya ilu", main drum and "omele", smaller accompanying drums
- goje: sort of violin like the sahelian kora
- bembe: sort of band drum a la kettle drum
- sekere: a melodic shaker; beads or cowrie shells beautifully wound around a gourd
- saworo: like agogo, but its tone is low-pitched
- omele: a smaller, two-pronged, bata
- kannango:
- gbedu: another name for dundun or iya ilu
- gudugudu: a smaller, melodic bata
- sakara: goat skin is stretched over a clay ring to form a percussive drum
- agogo: a high-pitched tone instrument like a 3-dimensional "tuning fork"
- aro: much like a saworo
- seli: a combination of aro, saworo and hand-clapping
[edit] Popular music
Yoruba music has become the most important component of modern Nigerian popular music. Contrary to common assertions, Yoruba music is not influenced by foreign music but evolved and adapted itself, like any other type of music, through contact with foreign instruments. It is true that music genres like the highlife, played by musicians like Rex Lawson, Segun Bucknor are Nigerian/Yoryba adaptations of foreign music. These musical genres have their roots in the big metropolitan cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt where people and culture mix. The whole thing boils down to rendering African, here Yoruba, musical expression using a mixture of instruments from different horizons. It is a fact that Fela couldn't have played juju or apala music with his heavy brass section. Other musicians like Islam have no influence on Yoruba music only that the music was adapted to the practice of the religion. This is true of Fuji, which emerged in the late 60s/early 70s. In Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, these multicultural traditions were brought together and became the root of Nigerian popular music.
Modern styles like Salawa Abeni's waka and Yusuf Olatunji's sakara are derived primarily from Yoruba traditional music.
