(NWM) Music of Africa Lesson
Music of Africa Lesson
Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a distinct history from sub-Saharan Africa music traditions in the south.
North Africa is the seat of the Mediterranean culture, including ancient Egypt and Carthage, civilizations with strong ties to the ancient Near East and which have heavily influenced the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Eventually, Egypt fell under Persian rule followed by Greek and Roman rule, while Carthage was later ruled by Romans and Vandals. North Africa was later conquered by the Arabs, who established the region as a main part of the Arab world.
Like the musical genres of the Nile Valley and the Horn of Africa, its music has close ties with Middle Eastern music. The music of North Africa has a considerable range, from the music of ancient Egypt to the music of the desert nomads. The region's art music has for centuries followed the outline of Arabic classical music.
The ethnomusicological pioneer Arthur Morris Jones (1889-1980) observed that the shared rhythmic principles of Sub-Saharan African music traditions constitute one main system. African traditional music is frequently functional in nature. Performances may be long and often involve the participation of the audience. There are, for example, little different kinds of work songs, songs accompanying childbirth, marriage, hunting and political activities, music to ward off evil spirits and to pay respects to good spirits, the dead and the ancestors. None of this is performed outside its intended social context and much of it is associated with a particular dance. Some of it, performed by professional musicians, is sacral music or ceremonial and courtly music performed at royal courts.
Musicologically, Sub-Saharan Africa may be divided into four regions:
- The eastern region includes the music of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe as well as the islands of Madagascar, the Seychelles, Mauritius and Comor. Many of these have been influenced by Arabic music and also by the music of India, Indonesia and Polynesia, though the region's indigenous musical traditions are primarily in the mainstream of the sub-Saharan Niger-Congo-speaking peoples.
- The southern region includes the music of South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
- The central region includes the music of Chad, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, including Pygmy music.
- West African music includes the music of Senegal and the Gambia, of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Liberia, of the inland plains of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the coastal nations of Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo as well as islands such as Sao Tome and Principe.
Southern, Central and West Africa are similarly in the broad Sub-Saharan musical tradition, but draw their ancillary influences primarily from Western Europe and North America.
Besides using the voice, which has been developed to use various techniques such as complex hard melisma and yodel, a wide array of musical instruments are used. African musical instruments include a wide range of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells, in addition to melodic instruments including string instruments, (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-like instruments such as the Kora as well as fiddles), many kinds of xylophone and lamellophone such as the mbira, and different types of wind instrument like flutes and trumpets.
Drums used in African traditional music include talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and the different types of ngoma drums (or engoma) in Central and Southern Africa. Other percussion instruments include many rattles and shakers, such as the kosika, rain stick, bells and wood sticks. Also, Africa has lots of other types of drums, and lots of flutes, and lots of stringed and wind instruments.
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