Hi students! Welcome to the second quarter music lesson for grade 10 MAPE. The main topic for this quarter is all about the Afro-Latin and popular music. This particular discussion is part one of the lesson and we will focus on the music of Africa.
Stay tuned in my channel for the part 2 of this lesson, which will talk about the music of Latin America. Let's now explore the music and traditions of the African people. Music has always been an important part in the daily life of the Africans, whether for work, religion, ceremonies, or even communication. Singing, dancing, hand clapping, and the beating of drums are essential to many African ceremonies, including including those for birth, death, initiation, marriage, and funerals. Music and dance are also important to religious expression and political events.
However, because of its wide influences on global music that has permeated contemporary American, Latin American, and European styles, there has been a growing interest in its own cultural heritage and musical sources. Both particular subjects of researches are its its rhythmic structures and spiritual characteristics that have led to the birth of jazz forms. African music has been a collective result from the cultural and musical diversity of the more than 50 countries of the continent.
The organization of this continent is a colonial legacy from European rule of the different nations up to the end of the 19th century, whose vastness has enabled it to incorporate its music with language, environment, and culture. political developments, immigration, and cultural diversity. Let's now explore and discover the traditional music of Africa. African traditional music is largely functional in nature, used primarily in ceremonial rites such as birth, death, marriage, succession, worship, and spirit invocations.
Others are work-related or social in nature, while many traditional societies view their music as entertainment. It has a basically interlocking structural format due mainly to its overlapping and dense textural characteristics as well as its rhythmic complexity. Its many sources of stylistic influence have produced varied characteristics and genres.
Here are the different types of African music. First is Afrobeat. Afrobeat is a term used to describe the fusion of West African with Black American music. Next is Apala or Akpala. Apala is a musical genre from Nigeria in the Yoruba tribal style to wake up the worshippers after fasting during the Muslim holy feast of Ramadan.
Percussion instrumentation includes the rattle or sequeire, thumb piano or ajibigbo, and bell or agogo, and two or three talking drums. Next is Axe. Axe is a popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It fuses the Afro-Caribbean styles of the marcha, reggae, and calypso.
Next is Jit. Jit is a hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment influenced by mbira-based guitar styles next is jive jive is a popular form of south african music featuring a lively and inhibited variation of the jitterbug a form of swing dance next is juju juju is a popular music style from nigeria that relies on the traditional yoruba rhythms where the instruments in Juju are more western in origin. A drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion are used along with the traditional dundun, a talking drum or squeezed drum. Next is Quasa Quasa.
This is a dance style begun in Zaire in the late 1980s, popularized by Canda Bongoman. In this dance style, the hips move back and forth while the arms move following the hips. Next is Marabi. This is a South African three-chord downship music of the 1930s to 1960s which evolved into African jazz.
It is a keyboard-style combining American jazz, ragtime, and blues with African roots. It is characterized by simple chords in varying damping patterns and repetitive harmony over an extended period of time to allow the dancers more time on the dance floor. Let's now go to the different Latin American music influenced by African music.
The first one is Reggae. This is a Jamaican sound dominated by a bass guitar and drums. It refers to a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional Mento and Calypso music, as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues The most recognizable musical elements of reggae are its offbeat rhythm and staccato chords Next is Salsa This music is Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian dance music It comprises various musical genres including the Cuban son Montuno, Guaracha, Cha-cha-cha, mambo, and bolero.
Next one is samba. Samba is the basic underlying rhythm that typifies most Brazilian music. It is a lively and rhythmical dance in music with three steps to every bar, making the samba feel like a timed dance. There is a set of dances, rather than a single dance, that define the samba dancing scene in Brazil. Thus, no one dance can be claimed with certainty as the original samba style.
Next is Sokha. This is a modern Trinidadian and Tobago pop music combining soul and calypso music. Next one is Suere.
This is Muslim music performed often as a wake-up call for early breakfast and prayers during Ramadan celebrations. Relying on pre-arranged music, it fuses the African and European music styles with particular usage of the natural harmonic series. Next is Zouk. Zouk is fast, carnival-like rhythmic music from the Creole slang word for party, originating in the Caribbean islands of Guadalupe and Martinique and popularized in the 1980s. It has a pulsating beat supplied by the guaca and tambour belly drums, a tibur rhythmic pattern played on the rim of the snare drum, and its hi-hat rhythm guitar, a horn section, and keyboard synthesizers.
Let's now go to the different vocal forms of African music. The first one is Maracatu. Maracatu first surfaced in the African state of Pernambuco, combining the strong rhythms of African percussion instruments with Portuguese melodies. The Maracatu groups were called Nacos, or nations, who paraded with a drumming ensemble numbering up to a hundred, accompanied by a singer, chorus, and a coterie of dancers. The maracatu uses mostly percussion instruments such as the alfaya, tarol, and caixa de guerra, gongue, agbe, and miniero.
The alfaya is a large wooden drum that is rope-tuned complemented by the tarol, which is a shallow snare drum, and the caixa de guerra, which is a warlike snare. Providing the changing sound is the gongue, a metal cowbell. The shakers are represented by the agbe, a gourd shaker covered by beads. and the miniero or ganza, a metal cylindrical shaker filled with metal shot or small dried seeds called lagrima frenosa senbora. Blues is a musical form of the late 19th century that has had deep roots in African-American communities.
These communities are located in the so-called deep south of the United States. The slaves and their descendants used to sing as they worked in the cotton and vegetable fields. The notes of the blues create an expressive and soulful sound. The feelings that are evoked are normally associated with slight degrees of misfortune, lost love, frustration, or loneliness. From ecstatic joy to deep sadness, the blues can communicate various emotions more effectively than other musical forms.
Here are the noted performers of the rhythm and blues. Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker, as well as Bebe King, Bo Diddley, Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Musselwhite, Blues Traveler, Jimmy Vohan, and Jeff Baxter. Examples of blues music are the following, Early Morning, A House Is Not a Home, and Billy's Blues. Soul music was a popular music genre of the 1950s and 1960s. It originated in the United States.
It combines elements of African American culture with African American culture. gospel music, rhythm and blues, and often jazz. The catchy rhythms are accompanied by hand claps and extemporaneous body moves, which are among its important features.
Other characteristics include call and response between the soloist and the chorus, and an especially tense and powerful vocal sound. Some important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music includes Clyde McFatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James. Ray Charles and Little Richard, who inspired Otis Redding and James Brown, were equally influential. Brown was known as the godfather of soul, while Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson were the godfathers of soul.
are also often acknowledged as soul forefathers. Examples of soul music are the following, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Ben, All I Can Do Is Cry, Soul to Soul, and Betcha by Gali Wow. The term spiritual, normally associated with a deeply religious person, refers here to a Negro spiritual, a song formed by African migrants to America who became enslaved by its white communities.
This musical form became their outlet to vent their loneliness and anger, and is a result of the interaction of music and religion from Africa with that of America. The texts are mainly religious, sometimes taken from psalms of biblical passages, while the music utilizes deep bass voices. The vocal inflections, negro accents, and dramatic dynamic changes add to the musical interest and effectiveness of the performance.
Examples of spiritual music are the following. We are climbing Jacob's ladder, rock my soul, when the saints go marching in, and peace be still. Next is call and response.
The call and response method is a succession of two distinct musical phrases usually rendered by different musicians where the second phrase acts as a direct commentary on or response to the first. Examples of call-and-response songs are the following. Manish Boy, one of the signature songs of Muddy Waters. School Day, Ring Ring Goes the Bell by Chuck Berry. Let's now discover the different musical instruments of Africa.
First, let's go to idiophones. Idiophones are percussion instruments that are either struck with a mallet or against one another. The first kind of idiophone is a balafon. The balafon is a West African xylophone. It is a pitched percussion instrument with bars made from logs or bamboo.
The xylophone is originally an Asian instrument that follows the structure of a piano. It came from Madagascar to Africa, then to the Americas and Europe. The second one is rattles. Rattles are made of seashells, tin, basketry, animal hooves, horn, wood, metal bells, cocoons, palm kernels, or tortoise shells.
These rattling vessels may range from single to several objects that are either joined or suspended in such a way as they hit each other. Next is agogo. The agogo is a single bell or multiple bells that had its origins in the traditional Yoruba music and also in the samba baterias or percussion ensembles.
The agogo may be called the oldest instrument based on West African. Yeruba single or double bells. It has the highest pitch of any of the Bateria instruments. Next is a tingting con. These are slit gongs used to communicate between villages.
They were carved out of woods to resemble ancestors and had a slit opening at the bottom. In certain cases, their sound could carry for miles through the forest and even across water to neighboring islands. A series of gong languages are used to communicate between villages. were composed of beats and pauses, making it possible to send highly specific messages. Next is Slit Drum.
The slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument. Although known as a drum, it is not a true drum but is an idiophone. It is usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit, though two and three slits. cut into the shape of an H occur.
If the resultant tongues are different in width or thickness, the drum will produce two different pitches. Next one is djembe. The West African djembe is one of the best-known African drums. It is shaped like a large goblet and played with bare hands. The body is carved from a hollow trunk and is covered in gold skin.
Lobbed drums come in different shapes and sizes such as tubular drums, bowl-shaped drums, and friction drums. Some have one head, others have two heads. The bigger the drum, the lower the tone or pitch.
The more tension in the drum hit, the higher the tone produced. These drums are played using hands or sticks or both and sometimes have rattling metal and jingles attached to the outside or seeds and beads placed inside the drum. They are sometimes held under the armpit or with a sling. Next is Shekere.
The Shekere is a type of cord and shell megaphone from West Africa. consisting of a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd. Next is rasp.
A rasp or scraper is a hand percussion instrument whose sound is produced by scraping the notches on a piece of wood, sometimes elaborately carved with a stick, creating a series of rattling effects. Let's now go to a different kind of instrument called membranophones. Membranophones are instruments which have vibrating animal membranes used in drums.
Their shapes may be conical, cylindrical, barrel, hourglass, globular, or kettle, and are played with sticks, hands, or a combination of both. African drums are usually carved from a single wooden log and may also be made from ceramics, boards, tin cans, and oil drums. The first kind of membranophone is called body percussion. Africans frequently use their bodies as musical instruments.
Aside from their voices, where many of them are superb singers, the body also serves as a drum as people clap their hands, slap their thighs, pound their upper arms or chests, or shuffle their feet. This body percussion creates exciting rhythms which also steer them to action. Moreover, The wearing of rattles or bells on their wrists, ankles, arms, and waist enhances their emotional response. Next is the talking drum.
This is used to send messages to announce births, deaths, marriages, sporting events, dances, initiation, or war. Sometimes it may also contain gossip or jokes. It is believed that the drums can carry direct messages to the spirits after the death of a loved one. However, learning to play messages on drums is extremely difficult, resulting in its waning popularity. An example of the talking drums is the luna.
Another kind of instrument is called lamellophone. One of the most popular African percussion instruments is the lamellophone, which is a set of blocked tongues or keys mounted on a soundboard. It is known by different names according to the regions, such as Mbira, Karimba, Bisange, and Likembe First kind of flamelophone is Mbira The thumb piano or finger xylophone is of African origin and is used throughout the continent It consists of a wooden board with attached staggered metal tins, a series of wooden metal, or rattan tongs plus an additional resonator to increase its volume.
It is played by holding the instrument in the hands and blocking the tints with the thumbs, producing a soft-blocked sound. Next kind of instrument is chordophones. Chordophones are instruments which produce sounds from the vibration of strings.
These include bows, harps, lutes, zithers, and lyres of various sizes. The first kind of cordopode is called musical bow. The musical bow is the ancestor of all string instruments. It is the oldest and one of the most widely used string instruments of Africa.
It consists of a single string attached to each end of a curved stick, similar to a bow and arrow. The string is either plucked or struck with another stick, producing a percussive yet delicate sound. The earth bow, the mouth bow, and the resonator bow are the most common instruments of Africa.
are the principal types of musical bows. The earth bow, ground bow, or bit harp consists of a hole in the ground, a piece of flexible wood, and a piece of board. The musician plucks the thought string to accompany his singing. When the half chord is not Buried, the performer holds the instrument very tightly under his knee flat side down so that the cord puts enough tension on the wood to bend it into the shape of a hunting bow.
The next one is called Lute. It includes konting, kalam, and the enkunai. The lute, originating from the Arabic states, is shaped like the modern guitar and played in similar fashion.
It has a resonating body, a neck, and one or more strings which stretch across the length of its body and neck. West African clocked lute include the konting, kalam, and the nkoni. Next is the kora. The kora is Africa's most sophisticated harp, while also having features similar to a lute.
Its body is made from a gourd or calabash. A support for the bridge is set across the opening and covered with a skin that is held in place with studs. The leather rings around the neck are used to tighten the 21 strings that give the instrument a range of over three octaves. The kora is held upright and played with the fingers. Next is zeze.
The zeze is an African fiddle played with a bow, a small wooden stick, or plucked with the fingers. It has one or two strings made of steel or bicycle brake wire. It is from Sub-Saharan Africa.
It is also known by the names Cheche, Nzenje, Izeze, and Edengidi. And on Madagascar, it is called Lokanga or Lokango. Next kind of instrument is the Aerophones.
Aerophones are instruments which are produced initially by trapped vibrating air columns or which enclose a body of vibrating air. Flutes in various sizes and shapes, horns, panpipes, whistles, pipes, cord, and shell megaphones, oboes, clarinet, animal horn, and wooden trumpets fall under this category. The first one under Aerophone is Flutes.
Flutes are widely used throughout Africa in either vertical or side blown. They are usually fashioned from a single tube closed at one end and blown like a bottle. First kind of flute is called pan pipes. This consists of cane pipes of different lengths tied in a row or in a bundle held together by wax or cord and generally closed at the bottom. They are blown across the top each providing a different note.
Next one is horns. Horns and trumpets, found almost everywhere in Africa, are commonly made from elephant tusks and animal horns. With their varied attractive shapes, these instruments are end-blown or side-blown and range in size from the small signal whistle of the southern cattle herders to the large ivory horns of the tribal chiefs of the interior. One trumpet variety The wooden trumpet may be simple or artistically carved, sometimes resembling a crocodile's head. One kind of horn is called kudu horn.
This is one type of horn made from the horn of the kudu antelope. It releases a mellow and warm sound that adds a unique African accent to the music. This instrument, which comes in a set of six horns, reflects the cross of musical traditions in Africa. Today, the The kudu horn can also be seen in football matches where fans blow it to cheer for their favorite teams.
Next is reed pipes. There are single reed pipes made from hollow guinea corn or sorghum stems, where the reed is a flap partially cut from the stem near one end. It is the vibration of this reed that causes the air within the hollow instrument to vibrate, thus creating the sound.
There are also cone-shaped double reed instruments similar to the oboe or shom. The most well-known is the raita or gaita, an oboe-like double reed instrument from Northwest Africa. It is one of the primary instruments used by traditional music ensembles from Morocco. The raita was even featured in the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, specifically in the Mordor theme. Next is whistles.
Whistles found throughout the continent may be of wood, other materials. Short pieces of horn serve as whistles, often with a short tube inserted into the mouthpiece. Clay can be molded into whistles of many shapes and forms and then baked.
Pottery whistles are sometimes shaped in the form of a head. Similar to the Aztec whistles of the Central America and Mexico Next is trumpets African trumpets are made of wood, metal, animal horns, elephant tusks, and gourd with skins from snakes, zebras, leopards, crocodiles, and animal hide or ornaments to the instrument They are mostly ceremonial in nature, often used to announce the arrival or departure of important guests African Musical Instruments from the Environment Many instruments of Africa are made from natural elements like wood, metal, animal skin, and horns, as well as improvised ones like tin cans and bottles. These are mainly used to provide rhythmic sounds, which are the most defining element of African music. Africans make musical instruments from the materials in the environment, like forest areas from where they make large wooden drums. Drums may also be made of clay, metal, tortoise shells, or gourds.
Xylophones are made of lumber or bamboo, while flutes can be constructed wherever weeds or bamboo grow. Animal horns are used as trumpets, while animal hides, lizard skins, and snake skins can function as decorations as well as provide the membranes for drum heads. Laces made of hides and skins are used for the strings of harps, fiddles, and lutes.
On the other hand, bamboo was used to form the tongues of thumb pianos, the frames of stringed instruments, and stamping tubes. Strips of bamboo are even clashed together rhythmically. Gourds, seeds, stones, shells, palm leaves, and the hard-shelled fruit of the calabash tree are made into rattles.
Ancient Africans even made musical instruments from human skulls decorated with human hair. while singers use their body movements to accompany their singing. Modern Africans make use of recycled waste materials such as strips of roofing metal, empty oil drums, and tin cans. These people, bursting with rhythm, make music with everything and anything. At present, new materials that are more easily accessible, such as soda cans and bottles, are becoming increasingly important for the construction of percussion instruments.
Some rhythmic instruments like scrapers, bells, and rattles also provide the pitch and timbre when played in an ensemble to provide contrast in the tone and quality of the character. And that will be all for the part 1 discussion of our music lesson for the second quarter. Watch the part 2 of this lesson in my channel for the discussion of music of Latin America. Thank you and I hope you all learned a lot from this lesson. See you next time.
Bye!