Music of the World D. Chapman Quiz 2

Cantillation

Chanting religious texts.

Enculturation

The process of learning one's culture gradually during childhood.

Ostinato

A repeated phrase.

Ternary beat

A beat that has three quicker units within it.

Offbeats

Moments between the main beats.

Call-and-response

A musical form where a song leader and a singing group share the text and melody.

Agbekor

A type of Ewe singing and drumming that originated as a war dance. Its name literally means 'clear life'.

Anlo

A group of Ewe people; the name means 'cramped'.

Mawu

The Ewe supreme being, who is remote from human affairs.

Se

An Ewe divinity that interacts with the world; it embodies God's attributes of law and order and is the maker of human souls and a person's destiny.

Atamuga

The name for Agbekor in times of war, meaning 'the great oath'.

Gankogui

An iron double bell or gong that plays the foundational recurring phrase in the Agbekor ensemble.

Axatse

A dried gourd rattle covered with a net strung with seeds.

Kaganu

A slender, high-pitched, single-headed drum in the Agbekor ensemble.

Totodzi

The lowest-pitched single-headed drum in the Agbekor ensemble (excluding the lead drum).

Bounce strokes

A drumming technique where the stick bounces off the drum skin, producing an open, ringing sound.

Drum language

Vernacular texts (Ewe-language phrases) that are associated with specific drum phrases.

Griots

The common term for experts in speech, song, and instrument playing who are also counselors to royalty, entertainers, and guardians of history.

Spirituals

A genre of African American traditional music, considered one of America's greatest contributions to international music.

Hymns

Songs of praise to God.

Melisma / Melismatically

Singing a single syllable of text while sliding the melody around several different notes.

Lining out

A performance practice in which a leader sings a line and then repeats it with the congregation.

Chanted prayer

A prayer that is improvised by a deacon, gradually turning from speech into a chant with a definite tonal center.

sermon

A style of preaching that shifts from a speaking voice into a musical chant.

Whooping

A name for the musical chant style used by preachers during a sermon.

Negro spiritual

A genre that developed from camp-meeting revivals in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Fisk Jubilee Singers

A historical group from the late 19th century that established a tradition of singing carefully arranged, multiversed versions of spirituals.

Work song

A song workers sing to help them carry on, pace their work, and coordinate their movements in a team.

Field hollers

Songs sung by people working by themselves or at their own pace, often with a flexible rhythm and no steady beat.

Responsorial burden

The repeating line sung by the group of workers in response to the song leader.

"Rosie"

A traditional prison work song used to regulate the axe blows when felling large trees.

Blues

A music genre tied intimately to African American history and experience. It can be understood as both a feeling ('the blues') and a specific musical form.

Jazz

A genre that is best thought of as a technique, or 'a way of forming,' which musicians applied to the blues form, among others.

Syncretism

The merging of two or more distinct cultural identities to form a new, hybrid one.

Westernization

A process where long-established musical traditions, through interaction with white Europeans, are overtaken by Western culture. The final product is primarily Western but may retain some aspects of the native culture.

Modernization

A process where a native culture preserves its own future by selectively adding Western elements in order to survive.

Particiation in African Music

Music is a communal activity that involves both performers and audiences, whose roles may merge.

polyrythm

________ is the simultaneous occurrence of several distinct rhythms, forming the fundamental basis of African music.

What is syncopation in African music?

Syncopation is a musical rhythm where the expected accent or beat is shifted to a normally unaccented beat, creating surprise and forward drive.

What type of instruments are commonly used in African music?

African music often features a complex combination of many rhythms played by numerous percussive instruments.

How is music integrated into life in African cultures?

Music is deeply integrated into life and is often used for major communal events like funeral rituals and important celebrations.

Signifyin'

A genre of African American expressive culture that involves using "playful self-assertions and witty put-downs". It's a way to assert one's own power by cleverly denigrating an opponent, often through rhetorical questions (e.g., "Can a bird cry like the sea?") or witty insults (e.g., calling an enemy a "hornless dog") .

jazz

a technique which worked along side blues to form it

Blues Affect

provides an immediate reaction of cathartic emotional and, dance movement and truth-telling

Po Boy Blues Story Telling

written with lyrics that on the surface have no relatability, but through metaphore and illustration of struggle creates a deep connection between listener and performer

objective cantillation

the work itself must demonstrate that there is good reason for the emotion

the bluesman

the most romantic figure in popular music

Po Boy blues

• Heavy syncopation

• Vocal–instrument rhythmic contrast

• Polymeter (two against three)

• Triple–duple alternation

• Off-beat vocal entrances

• Speech-like phrasing

• Independent rhythmic layers

• Rhythmic tension and drive