![]() African stringed instruments include the musical bow, lute, lyre, harp, and zither. Such structures may utilize cross-rhythms or alternate double and triple rhythms in linear patterns.ĭrums 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. Rhythm patterns in one line or several simultaneous lines may interlock, overlap, or form polyrhythmic structures. The tuning systems, scales, and rhythms associated with instruments tend to be more complex than those of songs. 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. Body percussion is also exploited, the most common being handclapping and foot stamping. Stringed instruments (chordophones) include musical bows, zithers, bowed and plucked lutes, harp-lutes, arched harps, and lyres. Among wind instruments (aerophones) 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. Parchment-head drums (membranophones) are found in many forms, such as goblet drums kettledrums cylindrical, semicylindrical, and barrel-shaped drums and hourglass drums with variable-tension heads. The musical instruments of sub-Saharan Africa include a wide variety of resonant solids (idiophones) such as rattles, bells, stamping tubes, the mbira (thumb piano), and the xylophone. 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. Thus, the savanna belt of West Africa forms a music area distinct from the Guinea Coast because of its virtuosic instrumental styles and the presence of a class of professional praise singers, or griots, in that area. Some usages became concentrated in particular culture areas, whereas others were widely distributed. In the precolonial period, trade, wars, migrations, and religion stimulated interaction among sub-Saharan societies, encouraging them to borrow musical resources from one another, including peoples exposed to Islamic and Arabic culture, who had integrated some Arabic instruments and techniques into their traditional music. Because of their political and cultural importance, however, their preservation is given special attention in many countries Traditional music and dance face serious threat of decline. Evidence suggests that the needs of the church and other transplanted institutions may stimulate a new art music. 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. With urbanization and the impact of Western culture, traditional music and dance, although still practiced, have decreased. Songs generally are in call-and-response form. 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. ![]() Melodies are usually organized within a scale of four, five, six, or seven tones. 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. African music and dance, therefore, are cultivated largely by societies in sub-Saharan AfricaĪll sub-Saharan traditions emphasize singing, because song is used as an avenue of communication. Indigenous African musical and dance expressions that are maintained by oral tradition and that are stylistically distinct from the music and dance of both the Arabic cultures of North Africa and the Western settler populations of southern Africa.
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