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• explore the fundamental differences between the role and function of dance and music in African and western societies; • explore the role of the arts in traditional southern African cultures; • examine how dance and music have reflected and incorporated change over time;
African music is inseparable from its dance. The instruments of an African ensemble actually communicate to the dancer what movements to perform. The sounds of African instruments are voiced in the language of the ethnic group.
Feb 3, 2019 · 2) Traditional African musical genres include apala, axe, jit, juju, kwassa kwassa, marabi, reggae, soca, were, and zouk, each characterized by unique instrumentation, rhythms, and dances.
African music and dance are powerful symbols of identity. They show resilience and unity. This includes traditional drumming, Afrobeat, and hip-hop. They provide a space for personal expression and social connection. In traditional African communities, music is more than entertainment. It is a language and a way of life.
- Overview
- History
African music, the musical sounds and practices of all indigenous peoples of Africa, including the Berber in the Sahara and the San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoin (Hottentot) in Southern Africa. The music of European settler communities and that of Arab North Africa are not included in the present discussion. For the music of Islamic Africa, see Islamic a...
It is widely acknowledged that African music has undergone frequent and decisive changes throughout the centuries. What is termed traditional music today is probably very different from African music in former times. Nor has African music in the past been rigidly linked to specific ethnic groups. The individual musician, his style and creativity, have always played an important role.
The material sources for the study of African music history include archaeological and other objects, pictorial sources (rock paintings, petroglyphs, book illustrations, drawings, paintings), oral historical sources, written sources (travelers’ accounts, field notes, inscriptions in Arabic and in African and European languages), musical notations, sound recordings, photographs and motion pictures, and videotape.
In ancient times the musical cultures of sub-Saharan Africa extended into North Africa. Between circa 8000 and 3000 bc, climatic changes in the Sahara, with a marked wet trend, extended the flora and fauna of the savanna into the southern Sahara and its central highlands. During this period, human occupation of the Sahara greatly increased, and, along rivers and small lakes, Neolithic, or New Stone Age, cultures with a so-called aquatic lifestyle extended from the western Sahara into the Nile River valley. The aquatic cultures began to break up gradually between 5000 and 3000 bc, once the peak of the wet period had passed. The wet climate became more and more restricted to shrunken lakes and rivers and, to a greater extent, to the region of the upper Nile. Today remnants survive perhaps in the Lake Chad area and in the Nile swamps.
The cultures of the “Green Sahara” left behind a vast gallery of iconographic documents in the form of rock paintings, among which are some of the earliest internal sources on African music. One is a vivid dance scene discovered in 1956 by the French ethnologist Henri Lhote in the Tassili-n-Ajjer plateau of Algeria. Attributed on stylistic grounds to the Saharan period of the Neolithic hunters (c. 6000–4000 bc), this painting is probably one of the oldest extant testimonies to music and dance in Africa. The body adornment and movement style are reminiscent of dance styles still found in many African societies.
Some of the earliest sources on African music are archaeological. Although musical instruments made of vegetable materials have not survived in the deposits of sub-Saharan climatic zones, archaeological source material on Nigerian music has been supplied by the representations of musical instruments on stone or terra-cotta from Ife, Yorubaland. These representations show considerable agreement with traditional accounts of their origins. From the 10th to the 14th century ad, ig̀bìn drums (a set of footed cylindrical drums) seem to have been used. The dùndún pressure drum, now associated with Yoruba culture and known in a broad belt across the savanna region, may have been introduced around the 15th century, since it appears in plaques made during that period in the kingdom of Benin. The Yoruba dùndún drums are now used as “talking drums” in accompaniment to oriki (praise name) poetry (see Oral traditions). The double iron clapperless bell seems to have preceded the talking drum. Pellet bells and tubular bells with clappers were known by the 15th century.
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African music and dance hold great cultural significance in African society. They are used to celebrate important milestones such as births, weddings, and funerals, as well as to mark the changing of seasons and the harvest.
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Music heavily influenced the African traditional culture in all aspects of life: from birth to death, in economical and religious activities of a certain tribe. The music reflects the cultural characteristics of a society.
