What Are The Features Of African Music That Make It Unique?

Among the qualities of African music which may be considered characteristic, then, we may include the following:

an emphasis on rhythmic and metric complexity expressed throughout the musical system

; the use of extended syncopation, or off- beat phrasing of melodic accents, as a melodic device; the antiphonal call and …

What are the main features of African music?

African singing often includes glissandos (slides which are sometimes known as portamento)

and slurs, whistles, yodels and swoops and types of sound such as a raspy or buzzy quality

. Melodies are usually organised within a scale of four, five, six, or seven notes.

What makes African music unique?

African singers use a wide variety of sounds. The melodies are short, repeated over and over, also include

whistles and yodels

which is peculiar to African style of music. Soloist often improvises new melodies while the chorus continuous with the original melody creating a polyphonic structure.

What is the most important element of African music?

Throughout Africa, there are four distinct categories of musical instruments:

drums

, wind, self-sounding and string instruments. The African drum (called the heart of the community) is the most significant instrument as it reflects people's moods and emotions, and its rhythm holds dancers together.

What is the most distinctive feature of all African music?

Slit drums

Falling between rhythmic and melodic instruments, the largest and most distinctive member of the African struck-idiophone family is the slit drum, made from a hollowed log. By careful thinning of the flanks at certain places, the instrument may be tuned so as to yield as many as four distinct pitches.

What are the 5 kinds of African music?

• Soukous. Soukous is a form of music that stems from rumba. …
• JuJu. …
• Mbalax. …
• Zilin. …
• Gnawa. …
• Mbaqanga. …
• Chimurenga. …
• Majika.

What makes music unique?

Music is Unique in Using

Almost All of the Brain

.

Playing

, listening, and creating music involves most cognitive skills and uses most of the brain. … There is evidence that training in music stimulates unique brain capacities.

What are the main features of reggae music?

• electric guitars and drums line-up.
• amplified bass guitar riffs (short repeated patterns)
• an association with Rastafarianism (a religious movement worshipping Haile Selassie)
• characteristic rhythm in 4/4 with missing beat emphasis.
• use of repeated offbeat quavers.

What is the purpose of African music?

It permeates African life and has a function, a role to play in society; songs are used for

religious ceremonies and rituals

, to teach and give guidance, to tell stories, to mark the stages of life and death and to provide political guidance or express discontent.

What are the three basic elements of music?

A working definition of music for our purposes might be as follows: music is an intentionally organized art form whose medium is sound and silence, with core elements of

pitch (melody and harmony), rhythm (meter, tempo, and articulation), dynamics

, and the qualities of timbre and texture.

What is the most important element in West African music?

The music of West Africa is characterized by two main aspects:

rhythm and melody

. The rhythm is generally the most important, and West African songs are polyrhythmic featuring two or more conflicting rhythms.

What are the 8 types of African music?

• Afrobeat. Fela Kuti created Afrobeat by fusing traditional Nigerian music, jazz and highlife. …
• Apala. Apala is a percussion-based style of the Muslim Yoruba people in Nigeria, West Africa.
• Assiko. …
• Bikutsi. …
• Benga music. …
• Bongo Flava (Tanzania)
• Cabo-Love (Cape Verde)
• Chimurenga music.

How did African music start?

Early attempts at notating African music were made by

T.E.

… The single and double iron bells, which probably originated in Kwa-speaking West Africa, spread to western Central Africa with Iron Age Bantu-speaking peoples and from there to Zimbabwe and the Zambezi River valley.

How do they call a wooden xylophone in Africa?

It is known in Latin America as a

marimba

(one of its African names) and was probably taken there by African slaves; xylophones with calabash resonators exist in the Bantu-language areas of Africa under the name marimba. Other common names for such instruments in West Africa are balo or balafon.

What are the 4 main categories of African musical instruments?

Introduction. African musical instruments are classified into four groups namely;

idiophones, chordophones, aerophones and membranophones

.

What is the most distinct feature of djembe?