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Chapter 3: African Music

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• Population over 800 million (2000 estimate) • Extremely diversified languages & cultures

• Continuously changing for thousands of years

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Cultural Groups

Many ethnic groups, languages and style areas throughout continent

Ideally the songs, language, oral literature, instrumental music, theater arts and dance should all be explored together.

Sharing occurs between groups with cultural similarities (language, region, etc.)

Outside influence started long ago, mostly in Northern and Eastern Africa

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Early Instruments

Early history: the musical bow

Also plucked lutes; harps.

Rock engraving of an eight-string harp found 18th century bce (south of the Sahara). Many types of African harps, but no harps south of equator.

8th to 14th centuries, bells and gongs found. Written accounts in 1586, gourd-resonated xylophones

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Cultural Elements

Music and dance are inseparable

Ancestor reverence (worship?); specialists recounting stories of powerful families and important rulers.

The social roles of the so-called talking drums of West and Central Africa (the pitch can be changed by pushing on or squeezing drum)

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Dance/Music Usage

Dances often serve ritual purposes, marking stages of life involving music (initiation rites, weddings, funerals, ancestral ceremonies, etc.) or trance states

Often, dances are social with only veiled ritual purpose, if any.

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Dances Typically in Groups and in Circles or Lines

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Musical Traditions

Generally learned through oral tradition to students deemed worthy of training by virtue of ancestry.

In socially stratified societies, musical professionalism by jalolu (Griot) or by specialized court musicians.

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Musical Characteristics Found in Much African Music

Repetition

Pentatonics

Non-Western sense of pitch

Choral singing

Solo singing

Call-and-response

Polyrhythm

Syncopation

Buzzing, rattling sound

Songs integrated into storytelling

Accompanied by body movement such as hand-clapping, dance and work.

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African Rhythm Characteristics

Always at least two rhythms going on

3:2 relationship is central

Cross-rhythms: conflicting rhythmic patterns &

accents (Clave for example)

Integrally tied to dance, and so in some variety of

duple or triple time (4/4 or 12/8)

“Rhythm is to the African as Harmony is to the

European”

Chernoff, John Miller, African Rhythm and African Sensibility, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1979.

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Two African Polyrhythms

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Musical Instruments

Idiophones: clap-sticks, bells, rattles, struck/shaken gourds, stamping tubes, xylophones, mbiras (thumb pianos).

Membranophone: drums of all sorts.

Chordophones: musical bow, lute, lyre, harp, and zither.

Aerophones: flute, whistle, oboe, and trumpet.

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Ghana

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Ghana: Geography and Economy

Near equator, coastline, in rain forest, heavily wooded hills, many rivers.

“Ashanti” area; cocoa, minerals, timber. North: low bush, savannah; 64-102 degrees

Agriculture, fishing, forestry. Major cash crop is cocoa, also crops are rice, coffee, cassava, peanuts, and corn. Export cocoa, gold, timber, and various minerals.

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Agbekor: Music and Dance of the Ewe People (I:15-16)

Originally performed for war (control)

Linked to legend of monkey dance; a monkey beating stick inspired the dance

Agbekor signifies enjoying life, and sacred oath to ancestors to fight bravely; “clear life”

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Learning and Performing AgbekorRequires special training due to complexity

Rarely performed in villages now, but often performed in societies (mutual aid organizations, school and civic youth groups, theatrical performing companies)

The writer visited Anya Agbekor Society of Accra, dedicated to remembering old family members.

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Agbekor: basic drumming patterns

The first pattern is played by the double bell:

It is ubiquitous to nearly all of Africa.

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Agbekor: drumming patterns (cont.)

The next pattern to feel is the rattle & handclap pattern.

What division of the meter are we stressing?

Is it what you thought we would be playing?

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Agbekor

fullbackgroundpattern

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Mande People of Mali

Lambango (CD 1:17) Mariatu Kuyateh, Kekuta Suso (kora), and Seni Jobateh

Griots (Jalolu) = professional musicians who transmit oral history (of Mande people) through song.

Kora = indigenous African “spiked-bridge” harp

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Kora

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Dagbamba of Ghana

Lunsi = hereditary clan of drummers; serve as verbal artist, counselor, cultural expert, etc.

Gung-gong & lunga drums (specific names for double-headed drums)

“Nag Biegu” (CD 1:18)

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Shona of Zimbabwe

Mbira = “thumb piano”

Often placed inside a gourd resonator (deze)

Typically includes buzzing effect created by bottle caps or snail shells

“Nhemamusasa” (CD I:19)

“Nyarai” (CD I:20) Is there an Mbira influence here?

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BaAka People of central Africa (Congo Basin)

“Forest People,” “pygmies,” a unique culture

“Makala” a Mabo (net hunting) song (CD 1:21)

Improvised, open-ended polyphonic vocal musical style with all people participating. How does this express the culture?

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Djembe

The Djembe is the drum of the Mandinka people (Guinea), and its origins dates back to the great Mali

Empire of the 12th century.

VERY popular drum world-wide