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Ghanaian Music
There are many styles of traditional and modern music of Ghana, due to Ghana's worldwide geographic position on the African continent. The best known modern genre originating in Ghana is Highlife. For many years, Highlife was the preferred music genre until the introduction of Hiplife and many others. Traditional music The traditional musicology of Ghana may be divided geographically between the open and vast savanna country of northern Ghana inhabited by Ghanaians of Gur and Mande speaking groups; and the fertile, forested southern coastal areas, inhabited by Ghanaians speaking Kwa languages such as Akan. *The northern musical traditions belong to the wider Sahelian musical traditions. It features a mix of melodic composition on stringed instruments such as the ''kologo'' lute and the '' gonjey'' fiddle, wind instruments such as flutes and horns, and voice; with polyrhythms clapped or played on the talking drum, gourd drums or ''brekete'' bass drums. The tradition of gyil mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gyil
The balafon (pronounced , or, by analogy with ''xylophone'' etc., ) is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé, Bwaba Bobo, Senoufo and Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch of the Mandinka ethnic group, but is now found across West Africa from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali. Its common name, ''balafon'', is likely a European coinage combining its Mandinka name ''bala'' () with the word ''fôn'' () 'to speak' or the Greek root ''phono''. History Believed to have been developed independently of the Southern African and South American instrument now called the marimba, oral histories of the balafon date it to at least the rise of the Mali Empire in the 12th century CE. Balafon is a Manding name, but variations exist across West Africa, including the ''balangi'' in Sierra Leone and the gyil of the Dagara, Lobi and Gurunsi from Ghana, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Similar instrum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adowa Dance
Adowa is a dance by the Akan people of Ghana . It is a popular traditional dance in Ghana and it is performed at cultural ceremonies like festivals, funerals, engagements, and celebrations. The Adowa dance is a sign of expression that allows performers to communicate their emotions and feelings through their hands and feet. There are different hand movements performed for each setting. People communicate positive emotions at weddings or engagements and negative emotion In psychology, negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contem ...s at funerals. An Adowa ensemble consists of a lead singer, a chorus, and percussion instruments. The leader and chorus are almost always middle-aged women, who accompany themselves with hand-clapping and/or a double bell (''dawure'') or a single bell (''atoke''). Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akete
Nyabinghi, also Nyahbinghi, Niyabinghi, Niyahbinghi, is the gathering of Rastafari people to celebrate and commemorate key dates significant to Rastafari throughout the year. It is essentially an opportunity for the Rastafari to congregate and engage in praise and worship. For example, on July 23 of each year, a Nyabinghi is held to celebrate the birth of Emperor Haile Selassie I. During a Nyabinghi celebration men and women have different roles and expectations. Men are expected to remove any hair coverings, whilst women must keep their hair covered. A group of men typically organise themselves in a line or semi-circle and are assigned to beat the drums throughout. The remaining congregation continue to sing well known songs or 'chants', some of which are Hebraic scriptural verses that evidence the divinity of Haile Sellassie. For example, 'I have a little light in I and I'm going to make it shine, Rastafariiii, shine' and 'Holy Mount Zion is a holy place and no sinners can enter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fontomfrom
Fontomfrom is a Bono type of hourglass-shaped drum mostly used in a royal music ensemble of Bono people in order to relay Bono monarchy messages within a Bono people ethnic group setting. The Fontomfrom ensemble provides music for ceremonies honoring Bono chiefs and Bono monarchy royal processions. The Fontomfrom is also used to recite proverbs or replicate patterns of speech at most Bono monarchy royal gatherings or a Bono monarchy royal durbar. The Fontomfrom evolved from the popular hourglass-shaped drum (talking drum) of the 7th century. Shortly after the evolution, a few more non-hourglass shapes such as the Dunan, Sangban, Kenkeni and Ngoma drums were produced. Prior to the Fontomfrom becoming part of the Bono royal music ensemble as it is today, it was first introduced into Bonoman by Bonohene Akumfi Ameyaw I and Bonohemaa Owusuaa Abrafi circa 1320s, from North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cowbell (instrument)
The cowbell is an idiophone hand percussion instrument used in various styles of music, such as Latin and rock. It is named after the similar bell used by herdsmen to keep track of the whereabouts of cows. The instrument initially and traditionally has been metallic; however, contemporarily, some variants are made of synthetic materials. Origins While the cowbell is commonly found in musical contexts, its origin can be traced to freely roaming animals. In order to help identify the herd to which these animals belonged, herdsmen placed these bells around the animal's neck. As the animals moved about the bell would ring, thus making it easier to know of the animal's whereabouts. Though the bells were used on various types of animals, they are typically referred to as "cowbells" due to their extensive use with cattle. Tuned cowbells Tuned cowbells or ''Almglocken'' (their German name, ‘Alm’ meaning a mountain meadow, and ‘Glocken’ bells), sometimes known by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a percussion mallet, to produce sound. There is usually a resonant head on the underside of the drum. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Drums may be played individually, with the player using a single drum, and some drums such as the djembe are almost always played in this way. Others are normally played in a set of two or more, all played by one player, such as bongo drums and timpani. A number of different drums together with cymbals form the basic modern drum kit. Many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyrhythmic
Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhythm), or a momentary section. Polyrhythms can be distinguished from irrational rhythms, which can occur within the context of a single part; polyrhythms require at least two rhythms to be played concurrently, one of which is typically an irrational rhythm. Concurrently in this context means within the same rhythmic cycle. The underlying pulse, whether explicit or implicit can be considered one of the concurrent rhythms. For example, the son clave is poly-rhythmic because its 3 section suggests a different meter from the pulse of the entire pattern. In western art music In some European art music, polyrhythm periodically contradicts the prevailing meter. For example, in Mozart's opera ''Don Giovanni'', two orchestras are heard playin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griot
A griot (; ; Manding languages, Manding: or (in N'Ko script, N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, which is an African tradition. Instead of writing history books, List of oral repositories, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. Sometimes there are families of historians, and the oral histories are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud allows the speaker to use poetic and musical conventions that entertain an audience. This has contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down. Through their storytelling, griots preserve and pass on the values of a tribe or people, such as the Senegalese, who are Muslims. The Wolof people in Senegal, many of whom cannot read or write, depend on griots to learn abou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melisma
Melisma (, , ; from , plural: ''melismata''), informally known as a vocal run and sometimes interchanged with the term roulade, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as ''melismatic'', as opposed to ''syllabic'', in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note. History General The term ''melisma'' may be used to describe music of any genre, including baroque singing, opera, and later gospel. Within the tradition of religious Jewish music, melisma is still commonly used in the chanting of Torah, readings from the Prophets, and in the body of a service. Melisma is prevalent in many forms of Gregorian chant (see e.g. Jubilus) as well as late-medieval sacred polyphony, notably in works by Guillaume de Machaut, John Dunstaple, and many early Tudor composers represented in the Eton, Caius, and Lambeth choirbooks. Today, melisma is commonly used in Middle Eastern, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900. These terms may mean different things in different contexts. Very often, ''diatonic'' refers to musical elements derived from the modes and transpositions of the "white note scale" C–D–E–F–G–A–B. In some usages it includes all forms of heptatonic scale that are in common use in Western music (the major, and all forms of the minor). ''Chromatic'' most often refers to structures derived from the chromatic scale in 12-tone equal temperament, which consists of all semitones. Historically, however, it had other senses, referring in Ancient Greek music theory to a particular tuning of the tetrachord, and to a rhythmic notational co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentatonic
A pentatonic scale is a Scale (music), musical scale with five Musical note, notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. As Leonard Bernstein put it: "The universality of this scale is so well known that I'm sure you could give me examples of it, from all corners of the earth, as from Scotland, or from China, or from Africa, and from American Indian cultures, from East Indian cultures, from Central and South America, Australia, Finland ...now, that is a true musico-linguistic universal." There are two types of pentatonic scales: Those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic). Types Hemitonic and anhemitonic Musicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either ''hemitonic'' or ''anhemitonic''. Hemitonic scales contain one or more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
