GCSE WORLD MUSIC-African (Yiri) African Voices How are they used? In Africa songs are sung for many reason and it is ingrained into their culture. They can be sung for: -childhood lullabies -birthdays -marriages -funerals -religious and tribal occasions Techniques One main technique used in African music is call and response where one person leads and a group answers. The group normally sings the melody in unison whilst the leader/soloists improvise over the top. It is still used today in gospel music.
Collective improvisations are when different front-line group instruments all play their improvisations at the same time! They also used polyphonic texture, which is when ‘the cornet or trumpet plays the main melody with variations, and against which the clarinet plays a higher countermelody and the trombone a lower countermelody with much sliding between the notes’(http://www.last.fm/music/Original+Dixieland+Jazz+Band). The last characteristic is that they were often played in use of the 12- Bar blues progressions. One of the well-known piece is ‘When The Saints Go
We can see it uses G , C and E minor chords the most. Some may think it has a modal feel due to the The piece has a time signature of 12/8 which is a compound time signature. The vocal line and the instrumental line use syncopation. The use of syncopation is common in most pop songs. In bar 2, we can see the use of cross rhythms which is created by the drum kit (hi hat).
There are also blues inflections in the vocal and guitar duet where the flat 3rd is emphasised by bending the notes at the beginning of phrases. The use of blues notes are very common in the style due to the heavy blues influence in New Orleans Jazz. Chromaticism is also featured in Duke Ellington’s Koko, again blues notes are used, for example in bar 8 of Nantons trombone solo he uses a fragment of the blues scale making use of the flattened 5th, 3rd and 7th. Another example of Chromaticism in Koko is in the double bass solos where Blanton plays descending chromatic phrases. The use of chromatic notes adds to the mood created by the minor blues chord progression.
Also uses of Latin-American instruments – castanets and maracas to reflect the Puerto Rican gang. The rhythm of this piece uses a lot of syncopation from American-Latin and African roots and triplets are used to give a lazy feel to the song. The time signature is 3/4 however cross rhythms are used so the piece can sound like it is
The use of the word ‘drum’ in the line ‘drum stick knock’ is a musical reference, and music was often used as a way to escape the pains of slavery and is part of their cultural identity. The musical references help the reader to form emotional connections with how the slaves must feel. The poem uses "music is saving me" and "the drummer is calling me" to explain how the home traditions of the slave are getting them through the journey; "knees spread wide" is used to show how a whole nation is being forced into something they don’t want to do. This may also be a reference to the whites raping the women, which was common on the ships. In the poem Island Man the writer does not use much repetition.
Rock & Roll history Where did this type of music come from? The rhythm of rock and rock is from Africa. The immediate origins of rock and roll lie in the late 1940s and early 1950s through a mixing together of various popular musical genres of the time. These included gospel, folk music, and the blues - particularly the electric forms being developed in Memphis, Chicago, New Orleans, Texas, California, and elsewhere - piano-based boogie woogie, and jump blues, which were collectively becoming known as rhythm and blues. Also in the melting pot creating a new musical form were country and western music (including Western swing and influences from traditional Appalachian folk music), jazz, and gospel music.
While the tuba is played by buzzing lips, the bassoon requires the reed to vibrate, which is made of cane. The double bass, however, doesn’t need the mouth, but hand or a bow, which is made of horse hair, to vibrate the strings, which are made of gut. This concludes that all instruments sound differently due to different material. The bassoon, the tuba, and the double bass are similar, in terms of the range of each instrument. The bassoon and the double bass are both concert pitch instruments, meaning that they are pitched in C. Nonetheless, the tuba is also pitched in C along with F, E flat, and BB flat.
Many even consider him a pioneer of Afrobeats music. Afrobeats music is known to be a combination of traditional Yoruba music, Jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, which was very popular in Africa in the 1970’s. Throughout Kuti family there was much leadership and success. His mother Funmilanyo was known as a feminist activist. While his father Oludotun Rasome Kuti was a protestant minister and a school principal.
It is the sound of the drum and the rhythms that are said to provide the “heartbeat” of the dance. Of the various drums different tribes used in their dances, the bougaragou was the most popular and frequently used. Many groups also trained singers in order to provide intricate harmonies to go in combination with the powerful strikes of the drum. Some major changes came to African dancing throughout the slave trade era. The 1500’s were the beginning of slave labor as the Africans were brought to North and South