Nigeria

What does traditional music of Sub-Saharan Africa typically have? Diverse instrumental ensembles; Use of solo singers with a responding chorus; Complex rhythms and polyrhythms.

How do the principal musical manifestations found in sub-Saharan Africa reflect the collective community and encourage group participation? Incredibly complex rhythmic structures, especially to understand from a “western” perspective. Requires a high level of skill and concentration.

African music is a vital part of everyday life in Africa. It is a part of religious ceremonies, festivals, and social rituals. Songs are used for the important events in a person’s life (birth, coming of age, marriage, and death). They are used for curing the sick, bringing rain, and religious dances.

Music is a form of communication and it plays a functional role in African society. Songs accompany marriage, birth, rites of passage, hunting and even political activities. Music is often used in different African cultures to ward off evil spirits and to pay respects to good spirits, the dead and ancestors.

Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones.

Terms in this set (11)

• Maracatu. Maracatu first surfaced in the African state of Pernambuco, combining the strong rhythms of African percussion instruments with Portuguese melodies.
• alfaia. is a large wooden drum that is rope-tuned.
• tarol. which is a shallow snare drum.
• caixa-de-guerra.
• gongue.
• agbe.
• miniero or ganza.
• Blues.

Gnawa. There are five groups of Sub-Saharan African musical instruments: membranophones, chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, and percussion.

Idiophone, class of musical instruments in which a resonant solid material—such as wood, metal, or stone—vibrates to produce the initial sound. The eight basic types are concussion, friction, percussion, plucked, scraped, shaken, stamped, and stamping.

Idiophones make their sound by hitting, rubbing or shaking. Drums are not idiophones. Neither are stringed instruments. Examples of idiophones include the triangle, wood block, maracas, bell, and gong.

Examples of membranophones include all types of drums including the petia, sogo, bongo, the bedhug and the kazoo. In a membranophone, sound is produced by a vibrating skin stretched over an opening.