Music of Africa
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.
This article focuses mainly on sub-Saharan music. As
Alan Lomax has shown 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
Caribbean and
Latin American music genres like
rumba and
salsa, as well as
African American music) were founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken there by African slaves.
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.
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.
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
lamellophones 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 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.
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).
Relationship to dance
The concepts of "music" and "dance" are or European origin. In many African languages there are 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 viewd in very close connection. The classification of the phenomena of this area of culture into "music" and "dance" is forreign 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.
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 Islamic invasion.
Genres of popular African Music include:
*
Paul Berliner*
Hugh Tracey*
International Library of African Music*
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.
*
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*
AMR - African Music Radio*
AfricanMusic.org*
African Music*
A glossary of African music styles*
International Library of African Music atRhodes University Department Of Music And Musicology
*
Rhythms of the Continent (BBC)*
African Drumming Festivals and Ceremonies
