Rhythm in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan African musicis characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest"^[1]that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory, so thatArthur Morris Jones(1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as constitutingone main system.^[2]C. K. Ladzekpo also affirms theprofound homogeneityof approach.^[3]West African rhythmic techniques carried over the Atlantic were fundamental ingredients in various musical styles of the Americas:samba,forró,maracatuandcocoin Brazil, Afro-Cuban music and Afro-American musical genres such asblues,jazz,rhythm & blues,funk,soul,reggae,hip hop,androck and rollwere thereby of immense importance in 20th century popular music.^{[citation needed]}The drum is renowned throughout Africa.

Rhythm in Sub-Saharan African culture

ManySub-Saharanlanguages do not have a word forrhythm,or evenmusic^{[citation needed]}.Rhythms represent the very fabric of life and embody the people's interdependence in human relationships^{[citation needed]}.Cross-beats can symbolize challenging moments or emotional stress: playing them while fully grounded in the main beats prepares one for maintaining life-purpose while dealing with life's challenges.^[4]The sounding of three beats against two is experienced in everyday life and helps develop "a two-dimensional attitude to rhythm". Throughout Western and Central Africa child's play includes games that develop a feeling for multiple rhythms.^[5]

Among the characteristics of the Sub-Saharan African approach to rhythm aresyncopationandcross-beatswhich may be understood as sustained and systematicpolyrhythms,anostinatoof two or more distinct rhythmicfigures,patterns orphrasesat once. The simultaneous use of contrasting rhythmic patterns within the same scheme of accents or meter lies at the core of African rhythmic tradition. All such "asymmetrical" patterns are historically and geographically interrelated.^[6]

As a result of the migrations ofNiger-Congopeoples (e.g.,Bantu expansion), polyrhythmic culture (e.g.,dance,music), which is generally associated with being a common trait among moderncultures of Africa,spread throughout Africa.^[7]Due to theTrans-Atlantic slave trade,music of the African diaspora,many of whom descend from Niger-Congo peoples, has had considerable influence upon modernWesternforms ofpopular culture(e.g.,dance,music).^[7]

Instruments

African music relies heavily on fast-paced, upbeat rhythmic drum playing found all over the continent, though some styles, such as theTownship musicofSouth Africado not make much use of the drum and nomadic groups such as theMaasaido not traditionally use drums. Elsewhere the drum is the sign of life: its beat is the heartbeat of the community.^[8]

Drums are classed asmembranophonesand consist of a skin or "drumhead" stretched over the open end of a frame or "shell". Well known African drums include thedjembe^[9]and thetalking drum^[9]

Many aspects of African drumming, most notably time-keeping, stem from instruments such as shakers made of woven baskets or gourds or thedouble bell,made of iron and creating two different tones.^[10]Each region of Africa has developed a different style of double bell but the basic technology of bell-making is the same all over the continent, as is often the bell's role as time keeper. The South Americanagogois probably a descendant from these African bells. Otheridiophonesinclude theUduand theslit drumor log drum.

Tuned instruments such as thembiraand themarimbaoften have a short attack and decay that facilitates their rhythmic role.

Cross-rhythm

African rhythmic structure is entirelydivisivein nature^[11]but may divide time into different fractions at the same time, typically by the use ofhemiolaorthree-over-two(3:2), which Novotney has called the foundation of all West African polyrhythmic textures.^[12]It is the interplay of several elements, inseparable and equally essential, that produces the "varying rhythmic densities or motions" of cross-rhythmic texture.^[13]3 and 2 belong to a single Gestalt.^[14]

Cross-rhythm is the basis for much of the music of theNiger–Congopeoples, speakers of the largest language family in Africa. For example, it "pervades southernEwe music".^[15]

Key patterns

Key patterns, also known asbell patterns,timeline patterns, guide patternsandphrasing referentsexpress a rhythm's organizing principle, defining rhythmic structure and epitomizing the complete rhythmic matrix. They represent a condensed expression of all the movements open to musicians and dancers.^[16]Key patterns are typically clapped or played onidiophonessuch as bells, or else on a high-pitched drumhead.^[17]Musics organized around key patterns convey a two-celled (binary) structure, a complex level of African cross-rhythm.^[18]

The standard pattern

The most commonly used key pattern in sub-Saharan Africa is the seven-stroke figure known in ethnomusicology as thestandard pattern.^[19]^[20]^[21]The standard pattern, composed of two cross-rhythmic fragments, is found both insimple(⁴
₄or²
₂) andcompound(¹²
₈or⁶
₈) metrical structures.^[22]

Until the 1980s, this key pattern, common inYoruba music,Ewe musicand many other musics, was widely interpreted as composed of additive groupings. However the standard pattern represents not a series of durational values, but a series of attack points that divide the fundamental beat with a cross-rhythmnic structure.^[23]

Tresillo

The most basic duple-pulse figure found in Sub-Saharan African music is a figure the Cubans calltresillo,a Spanish word meaning 'triplet'. The basic figure is also found within a wide geographic belt stretching fromMoroccoin North Africa toIndonesiain South Asia. This pattern may have migrated east from North Africa to Asia with the spread ofIslam:use of the pattern inMoroccan musiccan be traced back to Trans-Saharan exchanges during the Green Sahara.This influence increased due to slaves brought north across the Sahara Desert from present-dayMali.^[26]In African music, this is a cross-rhythmic fragment generated through cross-rhythm: 8 pulses ÷ 3 = 2 cross-beats (consisting of three pulses each) with a remainder of a partial cross-beat (spanning two pulses). In divisive form, the strokes of tresillo contradict the beats while in additive form, the strokes of tresilloarethe beats. From a metrical perspective, the two ways of perceiving tresillo constitute two different rhythms. On the other hand, from the perspective of the pattern of attack-points, tresillo is a shared element of traditional folk music from the northwest tip of Africa to southeast tip of Asia.

References

^Stapleton C. and May C.,African All-Stars,Paladin 1989, page 6
^Jones, A. M.(1959),Studies in African Music,London: Oxford University Press. 1978 edition:ISBN 0-19-713512-9.
^Ladzekpo, C.K. (1996),Cultural Understanding of Polyrhythmhttp://home.comcast.net/~dzinyaladzekpo/PrinciplesFr.html.
^Peñalosa 2009,p. 21.
^Steppin' on the Bluesby Jacqui Malone. University of Illinois Press. 1996. page 21.ISBN 0-252-02211-4
^Kubik, Gerhard (1999).Africa and the blues([Nachdr] ed.). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 54.ISBN 1-57806-145-8.
^^a ^bKubik, Gerhard (1994).Theory of African Music: I. Xylophone playing in southern Uganda.University of Chicago Press. p. 9.ISBN 9780226456911.
^Bakare, Sebastian (1997).The Drumbeat of Life.ISBN 9782825412299.
^^a ^b"Britannica Academic".
^Uribe, Ed.The Essence of Afro-Cuban Percussion & Drum Set.Alfred.
^Novotney, Eugene D. (1998),The Three Against Two Relationship as the Foundation of Timelines in West African Musics,Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, page 147
^Novotney, Eugene D.The Three Against Two Relationship as the Foundation of Timelines in West African MusicsUrbana, IL: University of Illinois (1998), page 201. UnlockingClave.com.
^"The Myth of Cross-Rhythm".Home.comcast.net.Retrieved30 January2014.
^Agawu, Kofi (2003).Representing African music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions.New York, N.Y.; London: Routledge.ISBN 0-415-94390-6.
^Locke, David (1982). "Principles of Off-Beat Timing and Cross-Rhythm in Southern Ewe Dance Drumming"Society for Ethnomusicology Journal11 Nov.. (1982), p. 231
^Agawu, Kofi (22 March 2006)."Structural analysis or cultural analysis? Competing perspectives on the" standard pattern "of West African rhythm".Journal of the American Musicological Society.59(1): 1–47.Gale A146258931.
^Peñalosa 2009,p. 51.
^Peñalosa 2009,p. 53.
^Jones, A.M. (1971).Studies in African music(1st; reprint ed.). London: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-713512-9.
^King, Anthony (1960). "The Employment of the Standard Pattern in Yoruba Music"American Music Society Journal.
^"3-2 THESIS ABSTRACT".Unlocking Clave.Retrieved30 January2014.
^Peñalosa 2009,p. s58; 63–64.
^Novotney, Eugene D.The Three Against Two Relationship as the Foundation of Timelines in West African Musics,Urbana, IL: University of Illinois (1998) page 158
^Garrett, Charles Hiroshi (2008).Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century,p. 54.ISBN 978-0-520-25486-2.Shown in common time and then in cut time with tied sixteenth & eighth note rather than rest.
^Sublette, Ned (2007).Cuba and its music: FROM THE FIRST DRUMS TO THE MAMBO(1. ed.). Chicago: Non-Approval Trade.ISBN 978-1-55652-632-9.
^Peñalosa 2009,p. 236.

Sources

Agawu, Kofi (2003).Representing African music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions.New York, N.Y.; London: Routledge.ISBN 0-415-94390-6.
Novotney, Eugene D. (1998).The Three Against Two Relationship as the Foundation of Timelines in West African Musics.Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
Peñalosa, David (2009). Greenwood, Peter (ed.).The Clave Matrix: Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins.Bembe Books.ISBN 978-1-886502-80-2.
Ladzekpo, C. K. (1995)."The Myth of Cross-Rhythm",Foundation Course in African Dance-Drumming(webpage, accessed 24 April 2010).