Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté - Debe live at Bozar
1 2023-02-21T12:03:57-08:00 Marc Thorman f2b57c456bb408491ab2cdffaf869c4905420054 30914 1 Live recording of the song 'Debe', from Ali Farka ... plain 2023-02-21T12:03:57-08:00 YouTube 2011-05-19T09:25:10Z pJUE03aeaQ4 Ali Farka Touré Marc Thorman f2b57c456bb408491ab2cdffaf869c4905420054This page is referenced by:
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ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF AFRICAN MUSIC AND DANCE
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SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: MUSIC AND DANCE
Setapa Dance, a traditional dance of the Bantu-speaking Twana people of Bostwana in southern Africa.
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The mbira is one of many instruments designed to play the repeating melodic patterns that underlie musics of Central and Southern Africa. For a given song, melodic pattern and rhythmic cycle are identical in length, and so reinforce each other. When several melodic patterns combine they create a rich and highly polyphonic texture. The master players on this recording do not simply repeat their melodic patterns -- they improvise by changing them subtly as the cycles progress, so that the overall patterns also change. In the background is the unchanging rhythmic pattern of the shekere.
Cosmas Magaya and Ambuy accompany themselves with mbiras. The song, "Nhemamusasa" ("cutting branches to build a shelter"), is among the oldest of traditional mbira songs of Zimbabwe. The mbira is also part of religious ceremonies of Zimbabweans: the rattling of bottlecaps or other material attached to the instrument is believed to attract spirits. Participants may fall into a trance induced by the mbira and its tuning, and become possessed.
The first image below shows the instrument and its method of playing; each of the metal "tongues" creates a specific definite pitch when activated by thumb or forefinger. The second image shows the mbira housed in a hollowed calabash to increase its resonance.
Music of the Baka mbuti
The Mbuti are a pygmy tribe in the Ituri Forest in Central Africa known for their highly complex musical culture. The video begins with a solo vocalist accompanied by a simple percussion rhythm. After a short break, a song being. A number of singers and instruments participate, creating a rich polyrhythmic texture. The singing style is a type of yodeling, instantaneously switching between low and high notes very far apart. (Note that these pitches are not sliding from one to another.) The second part of the video is a recording of music played on the harp zither, an instrument shown in the video at 2:55. This instrument is played by plucking the strings with thumbs and forefingers of both hands, creating repeating interlocking patterns. The final part of the video, beginning at 3:47, is polyrhythmic music created with water as the sound source.
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Two internationally renowned musicians of Mali teamed up for this concert. Mali is part of the Sahel, the area of Africa associated with string instruments, virtuosic soloists, and improvisation. Touré is widely recognized as having provided an intersection between traditional Malian music and Blues, an all-important African-American genre. The kora, pictured below, is a harp-like instrument of 16th-century Malian origin played in "Debe" by the renowned Toumani Diabate, improvising, while Touré backs him up with a repeating phrase on guitar.
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MUSICAL TRADITIONS OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
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INTRODUCTION
Four sub-Saharan African musical practices are central to the growth and identity of popular Cuban and African-American music.- Music made with percussion instruments
- The practice of polyrhythm
- Call and response singing
- A pentatonic pitch system, and bending/sliding pitches
PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS
Historically, Europe had few important percussion instruments involved in making instrumental music, whereas Africa has a vast array of drums and percussion instruments. Drumming is important in religious ceremonies, communal dancing, communication, and for pleasure, praise, militancy, and work.
Percussion instruments have a long important history in Afro-Cuban religions and in dance music. In America, where drumming was effectively banned, percussion instruments were not introduced until the twentieth century when the drum set became a standard component in social dance music and jazz.
African traditional percussion instruments are not confined to drums, but are also made of metal, wood, plants, and other material. Some, like the amadinda and balafon, produce definite pitches. Others--shakers, rattles, hand claps--are unpitched. The photo below includes string instruments and wind instruments in addition to percussion instruments, to show the diversity of musical instruments on the African continent.POLYRHYTHM
Polyrhythm is the art of layering independent rhythmic patterns to create an intricate composite pattern.
Polyrhythm is pervasive in much of the traditional and contemporary music of sub-Saharan Africa. It is a defining practice in Latin American dance music and is reflected in the American genres of ragtime, funk, and salsa.
Two principles are essential to polyrhythm: a time cycle (an overall length that can be measured in equal time units); and the practice of interlocking rhythmic patterns.
The figure below shows two simultaneous rhythmic patterns within a time cycle of six units. Drum strokes are indicated by the black X's (pattern 1) and red X's (pattern 2). The drum strokes coincide at the beginning of the cycle, then interlock on units 3, 4, and 5. Once a configuration like the one shown below is established, it repeats continuously, that is, it cycles or "loops." Individual players may improvise slight variations in a pattern, so that the music is not simply repetitive.
Time Cycle of 6 units 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Pattern 1 X X X |
Pattern 2 X X |EXAMPLES of polyrhythm
FOLI - Everything is rhythm.
Scenes show how the djembe (drum) and agogo (double bell) are made and played polyrhythmically; the melding of music and dance; transmission of music-dance culture. (10:50) Watch on YouTube so you can easily read the English subtitles.CALL AND RESPONSE
The call and response format is an exclusively vocal medium in traditional sub-Saharan African music. A soloist (the leader) sings phrases, and other singers (the group) respond in unison. The leader's phrases can be improvisational but the response must be fixed. Singers may recount royal history, tell stories, sing the praise of a patron, or discuss political and civic affairs.
Call and response is a common practice in Cuban and American popular music, where it takes on many different forms through modifications and transformations of sub-Saharan call and response.Sékouba Traoré is a musician from Mali whose international reputation, tours, and recordings have popularized the tradition of the dozo ton, a West African confraternity of hunters who are also adepts in the use of medicinal plants and who advocate the moral precepts found in a syncretic blend of indigenous animistic beliefs and Islam. In this video he leads a procession of dozo ton as part of a ceremony in praise of the courage and nobility of lions. The instrument he plays, the n’goni, is the accompaniment for dozo ritual song.
PENTATONICISM AND PITCH FLEXIBILITY
Melodies in the Sahel and other parts of Africa are derived from a pentatonic (five-tone) scale similar to the minor pentatonic scale of European folk music. For instance, the tones of the E-minor pentatonic scale are E G A B D but in sub-Saharan African music the tones G and D are tuned just slightly lower than in standard Western tuning.
In European music each tone is fixed with little or no pitch flexibility. Pitch flexibility -- the bending of pitches and sliding from one pitch to another -- is a fundamental stylistic characteristic in African singing and playing of variable-length string instruments.
Pentatonicism and pitch flexibility are at the core of all popular American musical styles that have been created African-Americans, or touched by African-American music, including sacred and secular musical genres such as the blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, and rock.
E-Minor Pentatonic scale with bent and sliding pitches on electric guitar (2:45)
"Yer Bounda Fara" by Malian singer/songwriter/guitarist Ali Farka Toure (4:20)