African music is a tradition mainly played at gatherings at special occasions. The traditional music of Africa, given the vastness of the continent, is historically ancient, rich and diverse, with different regions and nations of Africa having many distinct musical traditions. Music in Africa is very important when it comes to religion. Songs and music are used in rituals and religious ceremonies, to pass down stories from generation to generation, as well as to sing and dance to.
Traditional music in most of the continent is passed down orally (or aurally) and is not written. In Sub-Saharan African music traditions, it frequently relies on percussion instruments of every variety, including xylophones, djembes, drums, and tone-producing instruments such as the mbira or "thumb piano."[1][2] African music has Juju, Fuji, Highlife, Makossa, Kizomba, Afrobeat and other music. The music and dance of the African diaspora, formed to varying degrees on African musical traditions, include American music and many Caribbean genres, such as calypso (see kaiso), soca and zouk. Latin American music genres such as bomba, conga, son, rumba, salsa, cumbia and samba, were founded on the music of enslaved Africans, and have in turn influenced African popular music.[1] The blues has likely evolved as a fusion of an African bluenote scale with European twelve tone musical instruments.[3]
Like the music of Asia, India and the Middle East, it is a highly rhythmic music. African music consists of complex rhythmic patterns, often involving one rhythm played against another to create a polyrhythm. The most common polyrhythm plays three beats on top of two, like a triplet played against straight notes. Beyond the rhythmic nature of the music, African music differs from Western music in that the various parts of the music do not necessarily combine in a harmonious fashion.
African musicians aim to express life, in all its aspects, through the medium of sound. African music does not have a written tradition; there is little or no written music to study or analyze. There are subtle differences in pitch and intonation that do not easily translate to Western notation. African music most closely adheres to Western tetratonic (four-note), pentatonic (five-note), hexatonic (six-note), and heptatonic (seven-note) scales. Harmonization of the melody is accomplished by singing in parallel thirds, fourths, or fifths.
Another distinguishing form of African music is its call-and-response nature: one voice or instrument plays a short melodic phrase, and that phrase is echoed by another voice or instrument. The call-and-response nature extends to the rhythm, where one drum will play a rhythmic pattern, echoed by another drum playing the same pattern. African music is also highly improvised. A core rhythmic pattern is typically played, with drummers then improvising new patterns over the static original patterns.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Africa#:~:text=African%20music%20is%20a%20tradition,having%20many%20distinct%20musical%20traditions.
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