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MyLynn Allen
Professor Kavka
MUS 105-002
23 March 2015
Sub-Saharan Africa Music:

African music, which is nearly always coupled with some other art form, expresses the
feelings and life of the entire community. The sound of feet pounding the ground
becomes the rhythm of the music whose notes are in turn transformed into dance
steps. -Francis Bebey (African Musician and Scholar)
Africa music has been the music of the indigenous peoples of Africa. The SubSaharan African music has, as its distinguishing feature, a rhythmic complexity common
to no other region. The most significant instrument that provides African rhythmic
complexity is the drums. In the Music of the Peoples of the World, it was said that:
Many Africans reckon the bonds of family not only laterally, that is, as a relationship
between siblings, cousins, and so on, but linearly back in time, sometimes far back.
(Alves 47) Music has the effect in African as a spiritual, emotional connection between
families and tribes. Sub-Saharan Africa music is known for its drum rhythm and its
unique introduction of traditional music. Because of the variety of musical instruments
and sound emergencies, Sub-Saharan Africa music has had the most significant impact
on the world of music.

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Like all music, Sub-Saharan African music contains a traditional historical function
within their music. African music is believed to have begun as early as 5000 B.C from
the earliest cave art known as rock paintings. The art depicting this music was
discovered in 1956 by a French explorer, Tassili Ajjer. Rock paintings were found in the
Tassili Mountains in the central Sahara to the Nile River and in eastern and southern
Africa. (Kallen 51) It was discovered that the ancient cultures, which are known as the
green Sahara, had the similar tradition drawing of the instruments and writing musical
rhythm on those discovered paintings. Because writing and reading came late into this
part of Africa, Africans used music as a created form of communication. In time, music
has becomes an exciting and interesting, as well as a communal way to celebrate
several major milestones in a person life. In the Brief History about African Music, the
anonymous author said that,
Because [of] music from Sub-Saharan focused on communal singing, it was
one of the earliest to emphasize the use of harmony and structured singing.
These singing methods ranged from simple rhythmic structures to incredibly
complex and elaborate structures based on improvisation and several variations.
(A Brief History about African Music)
The main rhythm base that is used in most African music is called polyrhythm.
Polyrhythm is a rhythm that makes use of two or more different rhythms
simultaneously. This rhythm is only found occasionally in other parts of the world. This
type of rhythm very difficult to play and extremely complex. The pitch polyphony exists
in the form of parallel intervals (generally thirds, fourths, and fifths), overlapping the

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choral antiphony and solo-choral response, and occasional simultaneous independent

melodies." (Infoplease) The structure has four basic elements which characterize it.
These are the equal pulse base, a metric time arrangement, a specific organizing
principle that unifies a diverse and simultaneous rhythmic pattern together, and an
exact starting point for rhythmic groupings. The stressed beginning of the metrical cycle
of the polyrhythm is called downbeats. In these patterns, the most frequently used
form in African musical traditions, is the use of ostinato, a short pattern that repeats
repeatedly. Other forms are called Responsorial forms. The musicians have performers
in different types of elements in the music. Its feature an exchange between a single
performers vocal or instrumental call and a group response. Often simply called calland-response, this practice is very common in African music, sometimes in very subtle
ways. (Alves 49) These ties into the African instrument.
Most of the instruments that are used in African music are in the family of
percussion. For example: drums, rattles, bells, xylophones, and mbiras. When the
ancient African musicians performed with drums, they used two sticks that are angled
or carved from a single piece of wood called an elbow stick. This allowed the player to
stand behind the drum and strike the head with a solid impact. In the Africa Drums

Music article, the anonymous author explains some of the most popular drums that are
played in different regions:
The djembe drum is one of the most popular African percussion instruments
and is incredibly versatile. A skilled djembefola, the master, can provide such a

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variety of djembe beats on one drum as to keep a whole room-full of dancers

occupied. (Music Mosaic).
The kpanlogo drums, also known as the ceremonial drum, were originated from the
Greater Accra Region in West Africa. They are known for their excellent ability to create
sounds that can be carried over a long distance. They were also used as a way to
communicate between tribes and family groups. The talking drum is constructed from
wood and rawhide and is shaped like an hourglass with the rawhide stretched across
both ends, creating two drumming surfaces. This drum, with the use of the elbow stick,
was widely used for communication during ancient times. Bongos are typically assumed
Cuban, but its believed that the African bongo became popular in Cuba as a result of
the slave trade. This kind of drum is usually fairly squat and produces a beat with a
fairly high pitch (Music Mosaic). Beads, coins, make background shimmer sounds or
other small objects that are attach to the instrument to add buzzing or rattling sounds
in the background of an African music. In additions, Africans play a wide variety of
traditional instruments such as lyres, harps, zithers, lutes, saxophones, flutes, and
trumpets. The traditional music in West Africa is called Mbira. Mbira is mystical music
which has been played for over a thousand years by certain tribes of the Shona people,
a group which forms the cast majority of the population of Zimbabwe, and extends into
Mozambique. (Kallen 13) Mbira is both the name of the instrument and the music.
Mbiras could consist of one to three manuals and range from five to twenty keys per
manual. The Gogo of Tanzania constructs mibras with four to forty-five keys and
appears to allow for sympathetic vibration among the keys of the middle row (Music

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Mosaic). There are three main patterns that the mbiras fall into: pentatonic, hexatonic,
and heptatonic. The xylophones are another popular instrument used in Sub-Saharan
music. Xylophones have a curved keyboard which a amplify the sound of the curved
wood blocks. The balafon is similar to the xylophones which were common to the jail
musicians of West Africa. It has wooden blocks with gourd resonators under each bar.
There are some cases, where it has pebbles placed inside the gourds to add a rattling
sound.
Music and the instrument are used in the society of Africa as well. One of those
is the African dances. An example of this is the Broadway musical, The Lion King. This
musical shows how the music and dances tie-in together to create the beautiful
movements. Dances also regards the spiritual, religious, and initiation dances. Dances
help people who have worked, matured, or received praise accomplishing something in
the community. Dances have a celebrate festivals and funerals, compete, recite
history, proverbs, and poetry, and encounter the gods. They inculcate social patterns
and values. Only males or females perform these dances. They are often segregated
by gender, reinforcing gender roles in children.
Yoruba dancers and drummers, for instance, express communal desires, values,
and collective creativity. The drumming represents an underlying linguistic text
that guides the dancing performance, allowing linguistic meaning to be
expressed non-verbally. The spontaneity of these performances should not be
confused with an improvisation that emphasized the individual ego (Wikipedia).

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In the 21th century, the modern African music has developed further, and
national musical genres have emerged throughout the continent. African has introduced
the musical styles of jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, rock n roll, and reggae. Successful
musicians are usually the one who successfully blend this foreign musical style with the
musical tradition of their country (Music of Africa). In an interview, Norris Ntambwa,
who is from Congo, said that; my country was [just about the jazz or the blues], it has
a modified on Congolese way but the most music played is the rumba. [There]
traditional music was called the mutuashi, which has a sort of river dance with it
(Ntambwa). In the modern days music, he said that it has the similarity of the western
music. In 1980s, hip-hop has entered into the Africa scene and has been adapted by
the youths. In the beginning, Africa hip-hop artist were mostly mimicking their
American counterparts, which were getting a bad name. The reason was that modern
music had deculturalization and Americanized the youth of Africa. In those early days,
hip hop was more a style of the youth in the upper strata of the society. Which a form
of hip-hop was later introduced in the 1990s that had both styles of music and was
called the highlife. It contained lively guitar music, which was originally known as
palm-wine music. Juju is a popular band music in Nigeria, similar to highlife. Some of
juju and highlife artists had become international phenomenon included Sunny Ade. He,
himself had started to change the popular African music from him playing in the popular
club called Felos Afro-beats. Finally, Fuji brought in the 1970s, the tradition of Islamic
praise songs, traditional talking drum music called apal, and popular dance music. This
music featured huge percussion sections, but no guitar.

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In conclusion, sub-Saharan Africa music has made the most significant impact on
the world of music. It has the unique impacts in the modern world of popular music,
being the joy of rhythm. Africans has had success through performance of the
polyrhythm from generation to generation. Africans have brought the jail, polyrhythm
and Mira ways into the western cultures in the 20th century and all over the country.
Without Sub-Saharan Africa music, where would music be?

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Works Cited
A Brief History about African Music. 6 October 2009. Document. 20 March 2015.
<http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/a-brief-history-about-african-music1305209.html?en>.
Alves, William. Music of the Peoples of the World. Boston: Schirmer Cengage Learning , 2013.
Broughton, Simon, Mark Ellingham and Richard Trillo. World Music Volume 1: Africa, Europe, and the
Middle East. Vol. 1. London: Rough Guides, 1999. 3 vols.
Dumisani Maraire, Ph.D. African Music-Part One. 2 January 2004. Document. March 20 2015.
Hill, Rich. "African Music History." 27 May 2010. African Music- The Blog of Samite. Blog. 21 March 2015.
Infoplease. 1 January 2005. Encyclopedia. March 20 2015.
Jackson, Irene V. More Than Drumming: Essays on African and Afro-Latin American Music and Musician.
Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Kallen, Stuart A. The History of World Music. Farmington Hills: Lucent Books, 2006.
Music Mosaic. 1 March 2011. Document. March 20 2015.
Music of Africa. 3 Febuary 2006. Encyclopedia. March 22 2015.
Ntambwa, Norris. Interview. MyLynn Allen. 15 March 2015. Facebook Messenger.
Wikipedia. Sub-Saharan Africa Music. 7 February 2006. Wiki. March 22 2015.