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, gourdresonated 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 handclapping, 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.
Introduction to World
Music, Missouri
State University
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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 Agbekor
Requires 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
full
background
pattern
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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 worldwide
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