African hemiola style

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African hemiola style is a music rhythm common in Africa.

A hemiola involves two bars in triple time (3/2 or 3/4 for example) played as if they were three bars in duple time (2/2 or 2/4).

The interplay of two groups of three notes with two groups of two notes gives a distinctive pattern of 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2.

[edit] See also

• Hemiola
• Music of Nigeria

[edit] Further reading

• Brandel, Rose (1959). The African Hemiola Style. Ethnomusicology 3(3):106-17, correction, 4(1):iv.
• Karolyi, Otto (1998). Traditional African & Oriental Music, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-023107-2.