Differences between African and European music
JazzBuffalo
The Unesco Courier; Paris; Jun 1995; Leymarie, Isabelle;
Issue:
6
Start Page:
47
ISSN:
03043118
Subject Terms:
Musicology
Culture
Geographic Names:
Europe
Africa
Abstract:
Differences between African and European music are
discussed. Rhythm
is the strongest distinguishing factor between these
different types of
music.
Full Text:
Copyright UNESCO Press, United Nations Educational,
Scientific and
Cultural Organization Jun 1995
Although children in Europe are usually initiated into music
by learning
how to read it, children in Africa start by refining their
ear, watching adult
musicians, copying from them and playing with them as soon
as they are
able. Drummers often teach their students rhythm by getting
them to feel it
physically, by holding their wrists to help them keep time,
by singing to the
beat or beating out time with sounds or rhythmic phrases.
All of this helps
their pupils to absorb rhythm physically.
In African and Caribbean societies instruments "speak", like
the "talking"
drums that reproduce through their different timbres the
sounds of tonal
languages, and make certain rhythms semantically
intelligible by modelling
them on spoken language. "This is the way it says,' jazz
musicians may say
when they describe a virtuoso passage played on saxophone or
piano.
THE LANGUAGE OF RHYTHM
Rhythm is the strongest distinguishing factor between these
different types
of music. The West, which highlights correctness of timbre
and the rigorous
application of the rules of harmony and counterpoint, tries
to tame and
neutralize rhythm. It is no accident that some European
languages, for
example, refer to offbeat rhythm (which is, incidentally,
described in French
by a word with a pejorative connotation, contretemps) as
syncopation, as if
rhythmic intrusion can be so intolerable as to lead to a
"syncope" or loss of
consciousness. It is interesting to remember that when
European colonists
made contact with Africans, the instrument they often banned
and destroyed
was the drum, the very symbol of rhythm.
Many kinds of black music use harmony and counterpoint
wonderfully, but
they also have the highest respect for syncopation. This is
not a matter, as in
Asian or Arabic music, of precise rhythmic cells, of a
predetermined and
memorized rhythm respected by the musician or the dancer,
but one of skill
and personal inventiveness (even within a group of
instruments). It is the
spontaneous art of escaping from the beat, of playing
tricks, being
unpredictable, everything associated with the Afro-American
slang word
"hip" (smart, lively, unexpected) as opposed to "corny"
(square,
conventional, boring). The downbeat, which is favoured in
Western music
and corresponds to the rhythm of military music, is
considered "corny". The
upbeat, which is used in black music, produces the sensation
of swing and
is considered hip.
The West is disoriented by this conception of phrasing and
this cult of
rhythm, and is more inclined to admire Indian, Chinese and
Japanese ritual
music, whose rhythmic and ceremonial qualities seem more
directly
intelligible to it than African music. Yet Yoruba liturgies,
for example, are
works of awesome beauty and complexity. In them the iya, the
largest
instrument in the bata, the array of Yoruba holy drums,
talks to the gods in
dazzling, almost otherworldly rhythms that seem to emerge
from the void
and are beaten out with amazing precision. Black music also
favours
"breaks" that modify the beat whenever it slips into a rut.
ABOLISHING DUALITY
The Irish musicologist John Blacking spent a lot of time
among the Venda
people of South Africa before he really came to understand
their music. He
realized that his education had made him consider African
art as "different".
At first he stayed in his tent listening to Bach or Mozart,
but in time he
began to change his conception of music. "They [the Venda],"
he wrote,
"introduced me to a new world of musical experience and to a
deeper
understanding of my own music." When he regarded music not
as a set of
rules but as a series of human interactions and a bond
between the body and
the mind, the distinction between "classical" and "folk"
music disappeared.
And, he added, "by discovering precisely how music is
created and
appreciated in different social and cultural contexts, and
perhaps
establishing that musicality is a universal,
species-specific characteristic, we
can show that human beings are even more remarkable than we
presently
believe them to be--and that the majority of us live far
below our potential."
An open, global, human approach to music--all
music--combining the ear,
the eye and, above all, the heart, would do away with this
duality that locks
us in our solitude and prevents us from appreciating
cultures different from
our own. Other peoples and cultures are an essential part of
our world, and
if we cut ourselves off from them we shall the poorer for
it.
Bong...@webtv.net
clave to the exclusion of melody.
I was informed by one fellow here that it is not possible to play scales
on a hand drum. This sort of factual incorrectness impoverishes our
playing.
Musically,
Matthew
HOW DO I MEASURE UP? Listen to the mix of Chucho Valdes, Anthony
Carillo and myself playing "Tumbao" at www.picadillo.com/matthew and let
me know!