West Africa
Musicman 1
800 Years Of World Music
The African Voice... the Instruments..... and their development.
Indigenous African musical and dance
expressions are maintained by oral tradition and are stylistically distinct from
the music and dance of both the Arabic cultures of north Africa and the western
settler populations of southern Africa. African music and dance, therefore, are
cultivated largely by societies in sub-Saharan Africa
All sub-Saharan traditions emphasize singing, because song is used as an avenue
of communication. Because many African languages are "tone languages,"
in which pitch level determines meaning, the melodies and rhythms of songs
generally follow the intonation contour and rhythms of the song texts. Melodies
are usually organized within a scale of four, five, six, or seven tones. In
group singing, some societies habitually sing in unison or in parallel octaves
with sporadic fourths or fifths; others sing in two or three parts, using
parallel thirds or fourths. Songs generally are in call-and-response form.
With urbanization and the impact of Western culture, traditional music and
dance, although still practiced, have decreased. New idioms have emerged,
however, that combine African and Western elements; they include West African
highlife (showing certain Caribbean traits), Congolese popular music (reflecting
Latin American influence), and in southern Africa, sabasaba and kwella (both
akin to U.S. swing and jive music). Evidence suggests that the needs of the
church and other transplanted institutions may stimulate a new art music.
Traditional music and dance face serious threat of decline, but because of their
political and cultural importance, their preservation is being given special
attention in many countries.
Indeed my own experience in The Gambia, Senegal and Mali
suggests that the traditional has embraced the onslaught of Americana and indeed
begun to break new ground. By embracing modern technology and elements of the
modern music, the traditional music has maintained its identity and now
flourishes. Salif Keita, Jaliba Kuyate and Youssou N'Dour are testament to that!
In the pre-colonial period from the 13th
century, trade, wars, migration, and religion stimulated interaction among
sub-Saharan societies; encouraging them to borrow musical resources from one
another. This included peoples exposed to Islamic and Arabic culture, who had
integrated some Arabic instruments and techniques into their traditional music.
Some instruments were concentrated in particular cultural areas, whereas others
were widely distributed. Thus the Savanna belt of West Africa forms a musical
area distinct from the Guinea Coast because of the virtuosity of the musical
styles and the presence of a class of professional praise singers/griots in
that area. Similarly the music of east Africa is distinguished from that of
central Africa by a number of instruments, and from that of southern Africa,
which traditionally emphasizes certain kinds of choral organization and complex
forms of musical bows.
The musical instruments of sub-Saharan Africa include a wide variety of resonant
solids such as rattles, bells, stamping tubes, the mbira (thumb
piano), and the xylophone. Parchment-head drums are found in many forms, such as
goblet drums; kettledrums; cylindrical, semi-cylindrical, barrel-shaped and hourglass drums, with variable-tension heads. Among wind instruments
are flutes made of bamboo, millet, reed, or the tips of animal horns and gourds;
ocarinas; panpipes; horns (made from elephant tusks or animal horns) and
trumpets (made of wood, sections of gourd, or metal tubes); single-reed pipes
made from millet stalks; and double-reed pipes adopted from Arabic culture.
Stringed instruments include musical bows, zithers, bowed and
plucked lutes, harp-lutes, arched harps, and lyres. Body percussion is also
exploited, the most common being handclapping and foot stamping.
In selecting any instrument for music making or communication, consideration is
given to its melodic and rhythmic capacities, its evocative or dramatic power,
or its symbolic references. The tuning systems, scales, and rhythms associated
with instruments tend to be more complex than those of songs. Rhythm patterns in
one line or several simultaneous lines may interlock, overlap, or form
polyrhythmic structures. Such structures may utilize cross-rhythms or alternate
double and triple rhythms in linear patterns.
Drums are among the more popular African instruments, but other important
percussion instruments include clap-sticks, bells, rattles, slit gongs, struck
gourds and clay pots, stamping tubes, and xylophones. African stringed
instruments include the musical bow, lute, lyre, harp, and zither. The flute,
whistle, oboe, and trumpet are among the African wind instruments.
Examples of the Shakira...Balafon...Djembe...and
Kora!