African Music
When people speak of traditional African music, they are speaking of the music of sub-Saharan Africa, which is the area south of the Sahara Desert. ... The only similarity they share is their music, which has similar musical elements. In Africa, music is an outdoor social event where everyone joins in. As the musicians perform, they would interact with the audience and improvise the music on the spot. Music and African life is closely intertwined. ... The musical elements that set African music apart from the rest is polyrhythm, variety of tone color, call and response, and African scales and singing styles. In African music, rhythm is greatly emphasized and polyrhythm is often employed. ... When the various instruments are played together, it makes the music sound rich. ... This helps demonstrate African’s improvisational nature. Call and response is a performance style in vocal music, where the phrases of a soloist are repeatedly answered by those of a chorus. ... Another characteristic element of African music is their scales. ... This was called the blues scale and were later incorporated into the blues style of music. Jazz was created in the United States by African Americans, who performed in the streets, bars, brothels and dance halls of New Orleans. Like African music, Jazz stresses improvisation, syncopated rhythm, a steady beat, and distinctive tone colors and performance techniques. Jazz borrowed many music techniques from African music, such as call and response. Unlike African music, instead of a soloist’s phrases being answered by a chorus, an instrument or group of instruments is answered by another instrument or group.