African music

Generally, traditional music from the area of Africa south of the Sahara desert. The continent of Africa is the home of thousands of different musical styles, but these divide roughly into two regional traditions: North African music, which is strongly influenced by Islam and Arab music; and the music of sub-Saharan Africa (sometimes called ‘Black Africa’), which many people consider to be ‘true’ African music. The music of western, central, and southern Africa is based on rhythm much more than melody or harmony, and so percussion instruments, especially drums, almost always play a prominent part.

Within these two categories there are naturally many subdivisions, and some African music falls outside either classification. For example, Madagascar and parts of East Africa have been influenced by the music of Southeast Asia, and music in Egypt and Ethiopia has been influenced by Coptic Christianity. Used loosely, however, the term ‘African music’ is generally taken to mean the traditional music of western, central, and southern Africa.

Music in sub-Saharan Africa The main feature of practically all traditional music south of the Sahara is the importance of rhythm, rather than melody or harmony, and of percussion instruments. Music is almost always a group activity with an emphasis on polyphonic forms resulting from group improvisation on short, simple themes, and cross rhythms formed by playing different rhythmic patterns together. These rhythmic ostinatos appear complex to the Western ear, partly because of their relationship with one another, and partly because of their frequent use of irregular subdivisions of the beat – for example, grouping a sequence of 12 beats as 4 + 3 + 5 (this technique, known as additive rhythms, has found much use in 20th-century European classical music, such as the music of György Ligeti). The melodies in most African music are comparatively simple, being based on a diatonic or pentatonic scale, often only using a few notes, with a static underlying harmony. Because of this, tuned instruments have remained few and simple, in contrast to the vast range of percussion instruments.

Vocal music The same basic principles apply as much to vocal music as to instrumental music: unlike the monodic folk music of many other cultures, traditional African music is primarily polyphonic and rhythmic. It is also very much a group activity, so there are few solo songs, except in areas with some Islamic influence, such as Nigeria, where the griot (travelling musician/storyteller) intones or sings traditional stories. The commonest form of vocal polyphony is the call-and-response pattern, with a soloist improvising a melody between choruses, but there are several other forms of group improvisation in as many as eight different voices. Much instrumental music also imitates the tone patterns of speech, and many musical instruments are able to ‘talk’: the so-called talking drums in particular are often used to communicate with one another, or to address the dancers, either praising them or giving instructions.

Drums The drum is the most common of all instruments in African music, and also the most varied. It has been suggested that it is widely used because of its dual role as a means of communication as well as being a musical instrument. This is certainly the case with the talking drums of Nigeria, but the reason is probably just due to the mainly rhythmical nature of the music. African drums take many forms, from the simple hollowed-out tree trunk to the hourglass-shaped, double-headed talking drums capable of instantly varying pitch. Drum-making is a respected occupation and the maker is usually a highly skilled worker.

The simplest form is the slit drum, made from a hollowed-out log with a slit running lengthways, either side of which the wood is carved to give two distinct pitches, but the most variety is found in drums with membrane heads. Drumheads are made of a variety of animal skins, including goat, leopard, cowhide, sheepskin, and deer, and are stretched over a resonant body, which is usually either cylindrical or bowl-shaped. Drums are made in a variety of shapes and sizes: single-headed, either open or closed at the other end; or double-headed. Although drums are often played by hand, variously shaped sticks of hardwood are also used. Talking drums are tuned and capable of producing a number of different notes; the ‘language’ they speak is not merely rhythmic, but also depends on the relative pitches of the notes.

Other musical instruments It is not only the drums that are used to imitate language; almost all instruments in African music mimic speech patterns to a certain extent. Other percussion instruments include metallophones such as the gong-gong (a double bell) and various other gongs and bells; several versions of the xylophone, such as the balafon, which are made of a series of hard wooden strips arranged on a frame above gourd resonators; and the mbira or sanza (sometimes called the thumb piano or hand piano), made from a resonant board on which a set of metal tongues is plucked with the thumb and fingers.

There are also a number of string instruments, the most common of which is the musical bow. This is similar to the hunting bow, but is attached to any of a number of resonators such as gourds, or a covered hole in the ground, as in the case of the Ugandan ground bow. Lute- and harp-like instruments are also found, particularly in central and western Africa, and include the kora, a 21-string instrument. Less common in sub-Saharan countries are bowed string instruments, although varieties of fiddle are found in countries where there has been Islamic influence.

Wind instruments, although widespread, tend to be simple in comparison. There are rudimentary horns and trumpets, and many examples of flute or whistle, and in the north of the region forms of the Arab oboe, but the melodic range of these instruments is limited.

Music in northern Africa Much of northern Africa has a basically Islamic culture, and the music of these countries is much more ‘Arabic’ than ‘African’. Unlike sub-Saharan African music, it is mainly monophonic and melodic in structure, very often performed by solo performers or soloists with simple accompaniment, and there is much less emphasis on rhythm. As a consequence, it uses only a few percussion instruments in a secondary role to the many sophisticated string and wind instruments, which are usually Arabic in origin.

Influence of African music African music and its rhythms have influenced much of the ethnic music of other continents, including the distinctive rhythms of much Latin American popular music, and have formed the principal component of jazz. The move towards more complex rhythmic structures, and indeed a rhythmic rather than harmonic basis, in Western classical music is found in an increased use of percussion instruments – many of them African in origin – and has prompted many composers to study traditional African music. This influence is most clearly seen in the work of the minimalist composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but has had an effect on the whole spectrum of Western art music.

Modern African music Due to the colonization of Africa, and particularly as communication improves worldwide, the spread of Western culture has increased: the process of influence now works both ways, as music from the West – especially pop and rock music – can be heard in all but the remotest parts of Africa. Although this has meant the virtual disappearance of traditional music in some urban areas, it has also given rise to hybrid forms: highlife was one of the first of these, appearing in the early 20th century in West Africa, followed by the now-familiar southern African kwela in the 1950s, juju in Nigeria, and congolese in the Democratic Republic of Congo.