West African and Caribbean Music: Highlife, Afrobeat, Reggae
West African and Caribbean Music
Mami Wata – Kwaa Mensah, Ghana. West African pop Palmwine – Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian juju music. Two-finger guitar style of Liberian Kru sailors, (mostly Caribbean) and local musical elements. Mami Wata is a water spirit.
Taxi Driver – Bobby Benson (1950s) Nigeria. Classic in West Africa, Golden Age of dance-band highlife in Nigeria. Jazz swing instrumentation and big band Caribbean rhythms (calypso). Benson – multi-instrumentalist, composer. His Trumpeter –
Read MoreMedieval Galician-Portuguese Lyric Poetry
The medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric was born from the confluence of two currents. On the one hand, the popular songs of oral tradition linked with agricultural tasks, dancing, and the various seasons of the year. On the other hand, the knowledge that, thanks to the existence of the road to Santiago, will be taking a literary fashion, “Troubadour Lyricism,” which had its center of influence in Provence, southern France. This confluence of indigenous popular poetry and Provençal literature was
Read MoreMusical Forms Through History: Troubadours to Lieder
1. Troubadour
The troubadours were poet-musicians of the Early Medieval period. They created secular songs performed in the vernacular. Their minstrels were of the lower class.
The troubadour movement originated in southern France in the 11th century and extended across Europe. The troubadours created a type of song that spoke of refined and cultured courtly love and praised the lady, the spirit of chivalry, and heroes of the Crusades. The language used was from the region itself rather than Latin
Read MoreMusical Genres: Jazz, Rock, Pop, Opera, and Folklore
Musical Genres
Jazz
This style emerged in the early twentieth century in New Orleans within the community of African slaves brought centuries ago. The African slaves had their own songs for work, in addition to religious songs and the greatest contribution to the birth of jazz: the blues.
From the interaction of these manifestations and European music tradition was born what we now know as jazz.
We can summarize the main characteristics of jazz as follows:
- It is a style which mainly uses improvisation,
Medieval and Renaissance Music History
Medieval Music
Instruments and Origins
- Aulos: Associated with warship, wine, and Dionysus.
- Lyre: Associated with Apollo.
- Kithara: Associated with Helios.
Gregorian Chant
- Texture: Monophonic
- Syllabic: One syllable per note.
- Neumatic: Two to four notes per syllable.
- Melismatic: Five or more notes per syllable.
- Characteristics:
- Religious text written in Latin.
- Monophonic texture.
- No regular metric accent.
- Vocal music without instruments.
- Anonymous composers.
Secular Music (11th-13th Century)
- Troubadours: Composer-poets
Indian Classical Music: Ragas, Instruments, and Devotional Forms
Hindustani music places more emphasis on improvisation and *exploring* all aspects of a raga, while Carnatic music is primarily composition-based. The central notion in both of these systems is that of a melodic musical mode, or raga, sung to a rhythmic cycle, or tala. It is melodic music, with no concept of harmony. A raga (or raag) is a melodic framework for improvisation akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music. While the rāga is a remarkable and central feature of the classical music
Read More