Rhythms of Africa is a musical journey that describes the movement of ancient rhythms sprung from the souls of vibrant cultures and carried by hand and heart from Africa to the Caribbean, South America, and the New World.
What is the rhythm of African music?
African music consists of complex rhythmic patterns, often involving one rhythm played against another to create a polyrhythm. The most common polyrhythm plays three beats on top of two, like a triplet played against straight notes.
What type of rhythms are most commonly used in traditional African music?
The most commonly used key pattern in sub-Saharan Africa is the seven-stroke figure known in ethnomusicology as the standard pattern.
Why is rhythm important in African drumming?
It provides a ‘mixer’, allowing you to mute and fade different drums in a complex rhythmic cycle. Polyrhythm (literally meaning ‘many rhythms’) is the layering of a number of different rhythms. African rhythms are usually simple on their own, but when combined together they produce a complex, polyrhythmic texture.
What are the 5 kinds of African music?
14 African musical styles for you to explore
- Soukous. Soukous is a form of music that stems from rumba. …
- JuJu. Juju style originally came from Nigeria, a country which has produced many styles that managed to spread all around West African countries, including juju, jaija, fuji, ozzidi, palm-wine, highlife and afrobeat. …
- Mbalax. …
- Zilin. …
- Gnawa. …
- Mbaqanga. …
- Chimurenga. …
- Majika.
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What are the 5 most important features of African music?
Aerophones (wind)
- Flutes (bamboo, horn)
- Ocarinas.
- Panpipes.
- Horns from animal tusks.
- Trumpets wood or metal.
- Pipes being single or double reeds.
- Whistle.
What is the most important element of African music?
The music of West Africa is characterized by two main aspects: rhythm and melody. The rhythm is generally the most important, and West African songs are polyrhythmic featuring two or more conflicting rhythms.
What are the main features of African drumming?
Features of these elements include:
- polyrhythms are created by layering different rhythms together.
- dynamics are changed depending on the force with which the drum is hit.
- dynamics are not written down on a score – the leader signals changes in dynamics during the performance.
What makes African music unique?
African singers use a wide variety of sounds. The melodies are short, repeated over and over, also include whistles and yodels which is peculiar to African style of music. Soloist often improvises new melodies while the chorus continuous with the original melody creating a polyphonic structure.
What is the most distinctive feature of all African musical instruments?
Slit drums
Falling between rhythmic and melodic instruments, the largest and most distinctive member of the African struck-idiophone family is the slit drum, made from a hollowed log. By careful thinning of the flanks at certain places, the instrument may be tuned so as to yield as many as four distinct pitches.
What does cross rhythm mean?
Cross rhythm is the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are heard together. Polyrhythm is when two or more rhythms with different pulses are heard together, eg where one is playing in triple time and another is playing in quadruple time – three against four.
What is West African music called?
Afrobeat is a music genre with major popularity throughout West Africa. … Afrobeat is influenced by palm-wine music and Ghanaian highlife, as well as jazz, funk and fuji. Fela Kuti devised the term ‘Afrobeat’ as early as 1968 in his home country of Nigeria.
What is the history of African drumming?
Its Origins
The djembe drum is said to have been invented in the 12th Century by the Mandinke tribe in what is now Mali, in West Africa. It has been played by West Africans for generations forming an integral part of ritualistic life in Mali, Guinea, Senegal and other neighbouring West African countries.
What is the oldest African instrument?
The bolon is one of the oldest of the West African stringed instruments and was originally associated with the hunting and warrior traditions.
What is the most popular instrument in Africa?
Most widely spread and played instruments in Africa are the drum, the xylophone, the mbira, rattles and shakers.
What music do Africans listen to?
Many genres of popular music like blues, jazz, afrobeats, salsa, zouk, and rumba derive to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken to the Americas by enslaved Africans. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like rock, and rhythm and blues.