Music In Africa

By Mrs. Keough

Learn About African Music

• Click to fetch your worksheet

What Is Culture?

• Food• Language• Music

•Dance•Art•Government

Uta• Listen to a

stringed instrument

• You are listening to an “uta” from Kenya--a one stringed instrument.

Djongo (Kassena Dance)• You will hear the rattles

of the dancers and a string instrument.

• You will hear a Kassena flute group playing.

• There are 3 wia (flutes), 1 goun-gonga (drum), and 2 kwora (gourd drums.

Luo Funeral Dance• Some celebrations may not seem happy to us...

Traditional Singers• The Kibugantit

is a 6 stringed harp.

• They are singing:

Don’t praise yourself saying I am still young, laughing at the old, while the book of age comes upon you.

Nyatiti

• Lawrence Jakiwo plays this 8-stringed harp.

Jump for Joy!

• These dancers/singers are celebrating a wedding!

• The music is called a Vugo dance.

• You hear horns and tin drums.

• Do you like the singing?

Dance to celebrate

Drum and Dance

• These drummers are playing and dancing at a celebration

Listen to Nyalat• These are also Kenyan

dancers at a nighttime celebration.

• The music you will hear, called Nyalat, actually takes place inside a hut. We don’t know that they dress up like this, but we do know that they get very loud and excited!

Oud Player• This drummer

plays by himself.

• The drummer you will hear is Hamza El Din.

• The instrument in the recording is an “oud”.

The Talking Drum• People of Africa

can ‘speak’ with drum music!•The drummer gets a lower pitch when he hits the instrument closer to the center.•Drummers used to send messages in this way to other tribes who could hear them.

Drum Medicine

• Drums are very important to African life and culture. Witch doctors of Africa prescribe medicine of drums to help sick women. The patients are possessed by the “spirit” of the drums for hours, sometimes days, until the illnesses are expelled from their bodies!

Kouco Solo

• The stringed instrument you hear (kouco) may not look quite like this...

You may hear the player hit the body of his instrument as he is plucking the strings.

Listen to a Kenyan instrument

• Click on the icon to hear a new type of instrument from Kenya. Wait until you hear the melody instrument solo. Do we have instruments which sound like this?

Listen to a higher horn

• You heard this one at the wedding celebration! (soprano bung’o horn)

This is a marimba

• This instrument is like what American instrument?

This instrument actually comes from Tanzania.

Listen to ……..• Listen to music

played on a mbira. Is this instrument a

metal or wood family

instrument?

• Here is another mbira. Do you think it could be hard to play this instrument?

Click the cd to hear the recording of this instrument. There is a group playing these mbiras, and they have a very complicated pattern to follow.

What sounds do you hear?• Try to guess what musical

instrument could make the music you hear when you click below.

• Did you guess that this music is Rhinos singing

their mating

call?

Make an African instrument!

• Click below to go to a website that will give you directions.

Woods, Metals, Drums, Shakers

• You have heard all these types of instruments.

• You have heard 2 other kinds of instruments.• Which kind of instrument will you make?

Children make music, too!

These children are participating in a music contest in Nairobi.

Is MotherSinging?

Some things are the same in any language!

Akamba Witch Doctor

Mother in this picture is not singing unless she is a witch doctor! In

Kamba country, male and female witch doctors are still to be found.

Here, a female witch doctor compares her powers with the

strength of a lion.