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African Music
In Association with Amazon.com
African Music
In Association with Amazon.com
AFRICAN MUSIC AND DANCE, indigenous African musical
and dance expressions that are maintained by oral tradition and that are
stylistically distinct from the music and dance of both the Arabic cultures of
North Africa and the Western settler populations of southern Africa. African
music and dance, therefore, are cultivated largely by societies in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Musical instruments
In the precolonial
period, trade, wars, migrations, and religion stimulated interaction among
sub-Saharan societies, encouraging them to borrow musical resources from one
another, including peoples exposed to Islamic and Arabic culture, who had
integrated some Arabic instruments and techniques into their traditional
music. Some usages became concentrated in particular culture areas, whereas
others were widely distributed. Thus, the savanna belt of West Africa forms a
music area distinct from the Guinea Coast because of its virtuosic
instrumental styles and the presence of a class of professional praise
singers, or griots, in that area. Similarly, the music of East Africa is
distinguished from that of Central Africa by a number of instruments, and from
that of southern Africa, which traditionally emphasizes certain kinds of
choral organization and complex forms of musical bows.
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