Quarter 2 – Module 1: Afro-Latin American and Popular Music

2nd Quarter ValMaSci Test Reviewer

African traditional music

• Music primarily used in ceremonial rites, such as birth, death, marriage, succession, worship, and spirit invocations and viewed as a form of entertainment in traditional societies.

• Functional in nature

Types of African Music (Enumerate)

1. Afrobeat

2. Apala (Aklapa)

3. Axe

4. Jit

5. Jive

6. Juju

7. Kwassa kwassa

8. Marabi

Afrobeat

Fusion of West African and Black American music.

Apala (Akpala)

Nigerian musical genre in the Yoruba tribal style used to wake up worshippers after fasting during Ramadan.

Axe

Popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil that fuses Afro-Caribbean styles of marcha, reggae, and calypso

Jit

Fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment influenced by mbira-based guitar styles.

Jive

South African music featuring a lively and uninhibited variation of the jitterbug a form of swing dance.

Juju

• Popular music style from Nigeria that relies on traditional Yoruba rhythms.

• A drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion are used along with the traditional dun-dun (talking drum or squeeze drum).

Kwassa Kwassa

Dance style from Zaire in the late 1980s popularized by Kanda Bongo Man and is characterized by hip and arm movements.

Marabi

South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-1960s that evolved into African Jazz and is characterized by simple chords in varying patterns and repetitive harmony.

Vocal Forms of African Music (Enumerate)

1. Maracatu

2. Blues

3. Soul

4. Spiritual

5. Call and Response

Maracatu

• Combination of strong rhythms of African percussion instruments and Portuguese melodies.

• Paraded along the streets by up to 100 participants

Blues

• Widely performed musical form of the late 19th century with expressive and soulful melodies.

• The slaves and their descendants used to sing these as they work in the fields

Soul

• Popular music genre of the 1950s and 1960s originating in the African-American community throughout the United States.

• Combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues, and often jazz

Spiritual

• “Negro Spiritual”

• Music created by African-American slaves as a means of imparting Christian values and venting hardships as slaves.

Call and Response

• Question and answer sequence in human communication, often used by slaves while working.

• The slaves used to sing these songs while simultaneously doing all their tasks in a day

Classification of Traditional African Instruments (Enumerate)

1. Idiophones

2. Membranophones

3. Lamellaphone

4. Chordophones

5. Aerophones

Idiophones

Instruments that produce sound through the vibration of their bodies.

Types of Idiophone Traditional African Instruments

Agogo

A single bell or multiple bell instrument and is considered as the oldest samba instrument based on West African Yoruba single or double bells

Shekere

Gourd and shell megaphone from West Africa with dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd.

Slit/Log drum

• Hollow percussion instrument that is carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits at the top

• Not a true drum

Atingting Kon (Slit Gong)

• Hollowed cylinder of wood with a narrow longitudinal opening whose edges are struck to produce a deep, sonorous tone.

• Considered to be portraits of ancestors so that when played, it is the voices of awakened ancestors which resonate from their interior chamber

Balafon

• Wooden xylophone or percussion idiophone that plays melodic tunes.

• Played in the region since the 1300s

• It became a real art at the royal court of Sikasso/ Mali and was flourishing under the reign of a generous king

Membranophones

Instruments that produce sound through the vibration of a tightly stretched membrane.

Types of Membranophone Traditional African Instruments

1. Body Percussion

2. Talking Drum

3. Djembe

Body percussion

African music using the body as an instrument, producing sound through clapping their hands, slapping their thighs, pounding their upper arms or chests, or shuffling their feet. Wearing of rattles or bells on their wrists, ankles, arms, and waists enhances their emotional response.

Talking drum

• Drum used to send messages to announce births, deaths, marriages, sporting events, dances, initiations or war.

• Believed that the drums can carry direct messages to the spirits after the death of a loved one

Djembe

• One of the best-known African drums

• West African drum shaped like a large goblet, played with bare hands.

• The body is carved from a hollowed trunk and is covered with goat skin

Lamellaphone

Instruments that produce sound through the vibration of tongues of metal, wood, or other material.

Types of Lamellaphone Traditional African Instruments

1. Mbira (Kalimba/Thumb Piano)

2. Array Mbira

Mbira (Kalimba/Thumb Piano)

• A set of plucked tines or keys mounted on a soundboard

• Played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs

• Used to drive away evil spirits

• Believed that it was a vector of communication with ancestors and spirits

Array Mbira

• Hand-crafted instrument with a unique harp or bell-like sound, popular in Zimbabwe.

• Popular traditional instrument of the Shona people in Zimbabwe

• Radical redesign of the African Mbira

• Consists of up to 150 metal tines attached to a wooden board, comprising up to five octaves

Chordophones

Instruments that produce sound through the vibration of strings.

Types of Chordophone Traditional African Instruments

1. Musical Bow

2. Zeze

Musical Bow

• Ancestor of all string instruments

• Oldest and one of the most widely used string instruments of Africa

• Consists of a single string attached to each end of a curved stick, similar to a bow and arrow

Zeze

• African fiddle played with a bow, a small wooden stick, or plucked with the fingers

• Has one or two strings made of steel or bicycle brake wire

• From Sub-Saharan Africa

Aerophones

Instruments that produce sound through the vibration of air.

Types of Aerophone Traditional African Instruments

1. Fulani

2. Kudu Horn

Fulani

• Flute widely used throughout Africa, either vertical or side-blown.

• Usually fashioned from a single tube closed at one end and blown like a bottle

Kudu Horn

Horn made from the kudu antelope, producing a mellow and warm sound.