African Music

Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions. The music and dance forms of the African diaspora, including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca, calypso and Zouk; and Latin American music genres like the samba, rumba, salsa; and other clave (rhythm)-based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of African slaves, which has in turn influenced African popular music. Arguably the most important of the African musical concepts is that of call and response. The most basic form of call and response is mimicry and is directly related to rote learning. The students respond to phrases of a determined length by mimicking the teacher's call. By starting with one or two beat phrases and gradually working up to two and four bar mimicry, students will be working on critical listening skills while expanding short term memories. A more complex form of call and response is the static response, wherein the students reply to the teacher's ever changing call with one set response. The challenge here lies in the potential complexity of the teachers' calls. If the teacher begins playing calls that banish the downbeat or are highly syncopated, the students must rely on their burgeoning internal clocks to insure timely entrances.