Traditional African music

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Traditional African music is a vague term for the music played in black African countries that is considered to have little or no influence on musical styles outside the region. The word “traditional” constructs a contrast to acculturated music and presupposes a more or less historically constant African music, which is distinguishable from the influences since the European colonial times . In fact, the music of Africa has always been subject to change through regional cultural exchange and further development and often cannot be assigned to individual ethnic groups . On the other hand, such a distinction neglects the strong influence of Arabic music , while Western cultural imports are overemphasized from a Eurocentric point of view. The colonial music of the Cape Verde Islands was shaped by South American, Caribbean, Portuguese and West African influences, and the older music of Madagascar was first influenced by Southeast Asia.

A division into classical music and light music is a European categorization and not applicable to Africa. There is the courtly music of the royalty, ritual music and popular music, which is differentiated according to its intended use, which Africans do not necessarily associate with a valuation. Complex rhythms played with drums are just one aspect of African music, just as important is an oral tradition of singing. Individual style regions can be defined according to the occurrence of certain musical instruments and playing styles.

characterization

Mbira Dza Vadzimu

Many African languages are tonal languages in which pitch is used to distinguish meaning, and so pitch sequences in vocal music can be subject to the spoken tone . In addition, listeners can hear meaningful texts from instrumental tone sequences. African music and African dance are inseparable; many African languages ​​use the same word for music and dance. A word that exactly corresponds to the meaning of the term “music” does not exist in the traditional vocabulary of African languages. In a broader context, Swahili ngoma refers to any type of communal dance and music as well as regionally specific drum types. Community action is essential to the ngoma concept . Together with certain elements from European music theory, the term “music” was introduced into some African languages ​​- sometimes with a different meaning - in Swahili as muziki .

Storytelling , masks , music and dance are always associated with a social event in sub-Saharan Africa. The music to be heard cannot simply be changed, because it is causally part of the respective celebration or ritual . The shapes that are defined and known to everyone are correspondingly diverse. An improvisation by a drummer, for example, would meet with incomprehension. Variants, however, are by no means prohibited, they are even required to a certain extent, especially in order to be able to respond to certain reactions of those involved in the performance situation. However, these variations must be kept within limits, otherwise the language of the instruments becomes incomprehensible.

An important part of African music is repetition. Musicians and those involved can thus "immerse themselves" deeply in the music while listening and sometimes achieve trance-like states. Only in this way - by maintaining the pattern for a long time - can the music be understood in its entirety.

Music plays a central role in all events of importance and even in everyday activities. A festival must be canceled if the musician in question is away or ill.

African drums can literally sing and speak. The musical patterns often emerged from language. The individual drum hits of a rhythm pattern must clearly differ in their pitch or timbre , otherwise they remain incomprehensible and meaningless . With the so-called talking drums , which often require years of training, whole words and sentences can be communicated.

Historical research has shown that African musical cultures develop dynamically across the board. The term “original African music” therefore only reflects a romantic notion of the West and is used today to increase the market value of African music in the West, but has no objective basis.

Style areas

Common to all African musical styles is the direct expression and communication of emotions between singers and dancers. Beyond that, however , Africa’s cultures are too diverse to name similarities for the entire continent. Various sound systems , music linked to cult, representation, village festivals, urban entertainment, and a commercial music industry ( shellac records) since the beginning of the 20th century , each exist under different local conditions.

African music is seldom "ethnic" in a strict sense, i.e. rigidly tied to a certain ethnic group, but rather regionally determinable. A rough division into style areas distinguishes the Khoisan in southern Africa from the Bantu- speaking Central and South Africa and the more or less Islamic- Arabic influenced regions of North Africa including parts of East and West Africa. The music of the Khoisan in turn influenced that of the Xhosa , especially their overtone singing ( unngqokolo ), which also imitates natural sounds.

Alan Lomax has developed a finer classification with the help of statistical evaluations of sound recordings, but he points out that the singing style in particular has numerous transcultural similarities, which, however , are not to be found in the Khoisan and Pygmies . The development and use of the instruments was more shaped by natural conditions; For example, in the case of wooden drums it was tied to the presence of large trees, or in the case of the tense fur drummers of the Xhosa, to the availability of large cattle hides.

Trade and Islamization resulted in a strong influence of Arabic music in large parts of the Sahel and East Africa. One of the elements adopted from the Arab world is the one-sided fiddle. In East Africa the Arab-Islamic influence extends to Lake Malawi and the coast of Mozambique and Katanga . Conversely, the music of Black Africa had an impact far into Morocco and Sudan.

In West Africa one can distinguish the strongly rhythmic, danceable music of the coast and the rainforest (e.g. the drum music of the Malinke in Guinea and Gambia ) from the music of the Mande- speaking population of the savannah region (e.g. Malis ). The Hausa , Bambara , Mossi , Kanuri , Fulani and Songhai peoples who live there have known the art of free rhythmic improvisation and the pentatonic scale since the 14th century. Her music is slower, more complex and characterized by cascading solo lines.

Spiritual character of the music

Traditional African religions are often animistic . Everything is considered to be animated: animals, plants and inanimate nature. The supernatural, invisible world of the spirits is closely connected to the natural world and the two worlds communicate with each other primarily through music (the sound is "immaterial"). The spirits to be questioned do not understand the verbal language, but the musical language, which is closely related to it. At all significant events of social life (birth, initiation , circumcision , healing, marriage, harvest, hunt, sacrifice, inauguration of spiritual and secular rulers, funeral, etc.) the spirits and ancestors are questioned, conjured up and graced.

In Islamic regions, too, the use of music as a spiritual force is strongly influenced by traditional animistic practices.

Social functions

Music can be used for a wide variety of purposes in African cultures. Examples of social functions of music are:

  • Learning in the initiation school: The initiators learn cognitive contents of their culture with the help of music
  • Representation of secular rulers: Royal drums and trumpets (like the long kakaki trumpet among the Hausa ) embody social prestige and political authority.
  • Performing rituals for the dead (e.g. the Bira by Stella Chiweshe )
  • Accompaniment of the myths , legends and chronicles of the award singers
  • Music for dance - up to “ secularized ” forms of African rock music , especially in cities
  • Music for relaxation , recreation, entertainment, as lullabies
  • Music for messaging by message drums

Some musical instruments

Six-string pluriarc lukombe on the Congo . 63 cm long. Tropical Museum , Amsterdam, before 1907

Some musical instruments are characteristic of a certain ethnic group or a certain cultural tradition. So z. B. the mbira dza vadzimu used by the Shona for making contact with the ancestors and for entertainment, other lamellophones are used exclusively for ancestor worship . The beaker drum djembé , on the other hand, is a non-specific musical instrument that is widespread in the young popular music of West Africa and has the reputation of being typically African in international pop music.

String instruments:

Drums:

Idiophones:

Hollow slit drums from the Bamileke , West Cameroon

Wind instruments:

Clay scales

Mostly pentatonic or heptatonic ; the size of the interval varies from region to region and in some cases deviates strongly from the European tempered scale. The melos is predominantly narrow and descending; smaller intervals prevail. Short motifs are often repeated, varied or sequenced. The ideal voice when singing is predominantly hoarse and rough guttural, up to shrill screams.

The tonalities of the respective African languages ​​can be imitated with various instruments.

rhythm

Two sabar drums from Senegal

The traditional music of West Africa in particular has a multitude of complex percussion rhythms with syncope and cross-beats . So z. B. an identical rhythmic pattern can be played and shifted against itself so that the accents do not coincide. In extreme cases, four rhythms are combined with one another ( polyrhythmics ). In many African languages ​​there is no word for rhythm; the rhythm is an elementary expression of life and body expression. Many regional dances are characterized by specific rhythms. The Wolof's music has its own rhythm that goes back to the music of the Serer , where the smiths were also drum masters. The word sabar also denotes single-headed drums of different sizes, a dance rhythm, a form of music and a traditional Wolof festival. Usually the dance is accompanied by a griot , a storyteller.

The Yoruba percussion music uses the hourglass drum dundun , which is widely used in West Africa . With it, the tonality of the Yoruba language can be imitated (“talking drum”). The dance rhythms of the Yoruba gained considerable influence on Cuban and Brazilian music due to the abduction of many members of this nation as slaves and flowed into African popular music, especially highlife and the Jùjú .

Neo-traditional African music

The term neo-traditional is used to describe forms of music that have continuously emerged from older forms and are only subject to a few Western influences, but have nevertheless undergone greater changes than ritual or ceremonial forms because they serve purely entertainment purposes.

Under the influence of American gospel and European church music, the music of the Zulu migrant workers emerged as early as 1900, combining rhythm, harmony and melody in a balanced form. It was long forgotten and was rediscovered around 1980. The polyphonic a cappella singing of the men is called Isicathamiya ("creeping up"). Since this music is deeply anchored in the social organization and belief system of the Zulu, and its social function - strengthening the sense of community and the expression of power and masculinity - is more important than its entertainment function, it can be seen as another variety of neo-traditional African music.

The neo-traditional choral music of the Tswana and Sotho is also linked to both traditional-religious and Christian traditions. Traditional as well as modern instruments are used, such as the three-sided katara (guitar), the accordion and the oil barrel drum.

In a certain way, globalization is a protective factor for the preservation of acoustic African music. The European demand for the “old” sounds without electrical amplification also offers traditionalists a chance. This is especially true of West African music.

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Bender: Sweet Mother: Modern African Music . Trickster-Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-923804-10-5
  • Paul F. Berliner The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe . The University of Chicago Press, 1978
  • John Miller Chernoff: Rhythms of Community: Music and Sensitivity in African Life . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1999, ISBN 3872948385
  • Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje (Ed.): Turn up the volume! A celebration of African music . UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles 1999. ISBN 0-930741-76-5 and ISBN 0-930741-77-3
  • Gerhard Kubik : To understand African music . 2nd Edition. Lit Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3825878007
  • Erich Stockmann : Music cultures in Africa . Verlag Neue Musik, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3733300092
  • Joseph H. Kwabena Nketia : The Music of Africa . Otto Heinrich Noetzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1991 (3rd edition) ISBN 379590255X
  • Volker Schütz: Music in Black Africa. Workbook for music lessons in secondary schools. With double CD. Oldershausen Institute for Didactics of Popular Music, Oldershausen 1992
  • Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments (with music cassette), Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88609-117-1

Discography

  • Anthology of Music of Black Africa in three CDs. 1: Sonar Senghor & his troupe: Lost Africa . Tradition 1997 (recordings from the early 1950s)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Kubik : Music history in pictures : East Africa. (Volume 1: Musikethnologie. Delivery 10) VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1982, p. 5f
  2. ↑ Gerhard Kubik: Some basic terms and concepts of African music research. In other words: To understand African music. Lit, Vienna 2004, p. 61.
  3. ^ David Dargie: Xhosa music: its techniques and instruments, with a collection of songs. Vol. 1, (main volume), Cape Town a. a. 1988.
  4. ↑ Gerhard Kubik: To understand African music: essays. 2nd edition, Münster 2004, p. 10.
  5. ↑ Gerhard Kubik: To understand African music: essays. 2nd edition, Münster 2004, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Gerd Grupe: Signs of belonging and means of demarcation. Processes of identity creation from an ethnomusicological point of view . In: Wolfgang Auhagen, Claudia Bullerjahn, Holger Höge (Eds.): Music Psychology - Music Selection for Identity Creation and Emotion Modulation. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2011, p. 16
  7. ↑ 126 West African percussion rhythms
  8. ↑ Arthur Morris Jones: African Rhythm. International African Institute, London 1954.
  9. ^ Sabar on www.youtube.com
  10. ↑ Dundun on www.youtube.com
  11. ↑ Cf. for Ghana: Urban Bareis: Forms of neo-traditional music in Kpando, Ghana. In: Veit Erlemann (ed.): Popular music in Africa. Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, New Series 53, 1991, pp. 59–108.