University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Cross-Cultural Communication: World Music

242-329

Sub-Saharan African Music

I Musical traditions of most African societies constitute a network of distinct yet related traditions

II Music in Community Life

A. Occasions for public performance
  1. Social occasions (e.g., recreational activities, secular festivals etc.)
  2. Rites and Religious or Secret Ceremonies

  3. Other collective activities (hunting or search parties, building bridges, clearing paths etc.)

    B. Participants in musical performance usually closely linked in several ways
    1. Same ethnic or linguistic group
    2. Sharing common habitat, traditions, values, institutions
    3. May be kinsmen or member of same social group or caste

    C. Willingness to engage in collective activity (e.g., music-making) for the common good assumed

    D. Typical settings for Performances
    1. plaza specifically designed for music & dancing
    2. public place, e.g., market place, street corner
    3. "private" or restricted area, e.g., shrine, burial site etc.

    E. Attitude of "Audience"

III Individual/Solo Performances

A. Some songs deal with personal life and individual activities
  1. e.g., child who loses his first tooth sings a special song to commemorate the occasion
  2. children serving as shepherds play flute to amuse themselves (and occasionally to signal others)
  3. Adults also have solo songs in various contexts:

    IV Symbolic Role of Music in Ritual and Royal music

    A. Symbolic role of music adds to social cohesion and reinforces authority of "royal" personages

    V Types of Autonomous Performing Groups and their Music

    A. Participation sometimes thought of as voluntary, but sometimes as an obligation imposed by one's membership in a social group
    1. Some groups very specific, e.g., people "related" by common ancestry
    2. Some groups more general, e.g., those related by age, gender, class structure or occupation
      • Where society is tightly stratified (e.g., the Hausa of Nigeria), musical activity is generally assigned to the lower classes (higher classes content to be entertained)

    B. Children's repertoire
    1. Among the Ashanti, specifically designed songs of "insult" are sung by children to other children to "correct" bed-wetting and other violations of social norms
    2. Circumcision/excision ritual songs sung by boys and girls during the ceremony or while isolated from the village after the ceremony
    3. Game songs (counting songs, songs to teach rhythm and dancing etc.)

    C. Women's repertoire
    1. Puberty rites for girls have specific songs/dances in which adult women instruct the initiates regarding the duties and expectations of motherhood
      • Example: Dance of the Women (Dan)
        • Led by a "zole" (midwife and performer of excision operations)
        • 2 solo singers alternate against background sung by group
    2. Songs relating to childhood
      • ceremony celebrating twins sung by adult women
    3. Special healing songs in some rituals
    4. Specific songs at funerals (usually associated with wailing and lamenting)
    5. Repertoire of Praise songs
      • Example: Praise songs by Masai Women (Kenya)
    6. Lullabies
      • Example: Ba-Lari Lullaby
      • Example: Wagogo Soothing Song (Lullaby) (Tanzania)
        • Sung to a child who can't sleep--imitating the sounds of wildlife around them
        • 2 players with 11-string "zeezee" harp and "chorus"

    D. Men's repertoire
    1. Drinking songs
    2. Work songs
    3. Specific funeral or mourning songs

    E. Repertoire of specialists singing for autonomous groups

    F. Repertoire of Musical "Societies" and "Clubs"
    1. groups who perform for their own enjoyment or entertainment of others
    2. Sometimes invited or hired for special occasions (weddings, funerals, feasts)
      • often self-consciously engaged in preservation of traditions

    G. Repertoire of Religious or "Secret" Societies (More selective participation)
VII Recruitment and training of musicians (specialists)A. Desired attributes of a musician may vary
  1. Hourglass drummers of the Dagomba of Ghana
  2. Musicians of Akan of Ghana B. Recruitment
    1. many groups take active role in recruiting specialists who play vital roles
    2. Replacement of "official" drummer often seen as major ritual event
    3. Sometimes a specific family may be responsible for supplying a particular musical tradition
      • In Dagomba country the son of every player of an hourglass drummer is expected to become a dancer
        • daughter is released from this obligation but must eventually send a son to replace her
          • if she has only daughters, one must marry a drummer
    4. If not hereditary, becoming a specialist is sometimes contingent on a "calling" (i.e., dream or spiritual experience)

    C. Training
    1. Seldom formal or systematic
    2. Mothers usually inculcate basic music values
    3. Children rely on ability to imitate
    4. Some formal apprenticeships, but increasingly rare, as music-making in village is part-time job

    Ensemble of balafons, flute and drum

    VIII Organization of Instrumental Ensembles

    A. Melodic instruments (definite pitch) performing in ensembles: trumpet (natural, e.g., aluar horns, bungo horns etc.), flute, harp/lute, xylophone

     

    B. Instruments of indefinite pitch: drums, bells, rattles, struck gourds, stick clappers etc.

     

    VIII Melody, Polyphony and Rhythm in Instrumental Music

    A. Scales between 4 and 7 notes  

    B. Instrumental melodies may be ornamented variations of songs on which they are based

    C. "Original" instrumental melodies often based on sequences of repeated patterns (e.g., music for mbira or xylophone) or melody from which "emerges" a pattern

    D. Types of melody in instrumental music (typical contours)

    1. Mildly undulating, often beginning on low tone, rising, then returning
    2. Pendulum motion: swinging back and forth between high and low pitches or range
    3. Melodic contour sometimes based on tonal patterns of spoken language
     

    E. Polyphony in instrumental music

    1. melody against ostinato
    2. layered motives (e.g., "hocket-like" distribution of short melodic motives)
    3. 2 equal parts in counterpoint
    4. Occasional use of "imitation" in Shona Mbira duets
    5. "Chords" from musical "fiddle"
     

    F. Rhythmic basis of instrumental music

    1. Rhythm conceived in terms of abstract patterns or speech patterns (free or metric)
      • types of patterns
        • divisive: employing equal divisions of larger time units (i.e., subdividing units of time into several equal units) e.g., a "measure" or "cycle" of 8 beats made up of 4 sub-units of 2 beats: 2+2+2+2
        • additive: unequal units of time added together to make up a larger unit of time e.g., a "measure" or "cycle" of 8 beats with sub-units of 3+2+ 3
    2. Most African music includes some clearly apparent "Time Line," an "externalization" of the basic pulse or pattern against which other parts are measured
      • Multilinear rhythms
        • usually results from layering of interlocking parts ranging in "graded" levels of complexity
        • "Cross-rhythms" (Hemiola?) often results from a combination of some layers which appear to be divisive and some which appear to be additive
     

    IX Melody, Polyphony and Rhythm in Vocal Music

    A. Scales similar to instrumental music but more variety and not necessarily equivalent in type, even within a tribe or community  

    B. Types of melody in vocal music

    1. Undulating
    2. Sharply descending or terraced descent with undulating motion)
    3. Pendulum motion
     

    C. Polyphony and harmony in vocal music

    1. songs basically conceived as monophonic may occasionally break into 4ths or 3rds for "decoration" or to "thicken" the tone
    2. Methodical use of polyphony/harmony in 3rds or 4ths (occas. 5ths) is rare
      • use of voices in parallel 3rds or 6ths occasionally found by tribes frequently employing 7-note scales (e.g., Baoule-Kode, Ibo of Nigeria, some tribes in Ghana and the Congo, etc.)
        • but even among groups using 7-note scale, the uses of 4ths (and occas. 5ths) is still often preferred or used alternately with thirds (e.g., some groups in Kenya or Tanzania)
      • Parallel 4ths (and 5ths) more typical of groups using pentatonic scales (esp. East Africa)
      • Parallel motion in 3rds in 3 parts (resulting in "triads") is rare (prior to Western influence)
      • parallel motion in other intervals (e.g., 2nds) found occasionally
      • sometimes more complex polyphony resulting from a combination of multiple parts (e.g., layering or "hocket" texture)

    D. Organization of vocal music
    1. melodies are frequently "strophic variations," i.e., the same melodic idea is repeated again and again but usually varied or ornamented in some way
    2. melodies may have contrasting sections, but patterns are usually simple, e.g., A B A
    3. Form sometimes consists of a series of solo "declamations" rounded of by recurring refrain
    4. Call and response interaction
      • response to leader phrase(s) may be exact imitation, simplified imitation, or continuation
      • occasionally leader and chorus phrase may both change

    E. Great tendency for singers to "color" vocal quality or provide variety of vocal timbre during song
    1. Most traditions emphasize "open" vocal production; some prefer a more restricted tone
    2. Sometimes songs include "unusual" sonorities, e.g., falsetto, yodeling quality, humming, "growling," tremelo, vibrato, nasalization at phrase endings etc.

      Last Update 1211/01

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