Incorporating Other Music into West African Music

Music in all West Africa has a long history, and various kinds of music are involved. It began with various music traditions in West Africa and influenced each other. Since the 19th century Western music has been influenced by Western music. Between 1200 and 1900, a series of ancient African empire and central government flourished in West Africa, various kingdoms such as Songhai Kingdom and Ashanti Kingdom covered most of the contemporary areas of Mali, Ghana and Nigeria . .

According to historian Sylviane Diouf and ethnic musician Gerhard Kubik, West African music has regional differences, and Muslim regions combine Islamic music and non-Muslim music. Elements in this area are more affected by soil tradition. According to Diuff, the traditional Muslim West African music is a Muslim prayer such as lyrics, melodies, sound changes to praise God, Muslim prayer (Abyssinian African Muslim Bilal Ibn · at the beginning of the 7th century It adopts the element of mule It is trembling and shaking in the vocal cord, the dramatic change of the scale and the sound of the nose. According to the Kubic, the voice style of Muslim West African singer is "heritage of the West African region using the melisma, wave intonation etc. It is in contact with Maghreb's Arab-Muslim world from the 7th century.In the 8th century ".

Rhythm is one of the decisive features of West African music. The other is to use a melody, or main music theme. Traditionally, West African songs do not pay much attention to harmony and support the basic sound of melody. Due to the structure of West African songs, the melody is intentionally simple. So, you have a juxtaposed rhythm. In addition to this, you can also add melodies of calls and responses, one leader creating a melody and the other leader repeating it. In West African traditional song Kye Kye Kule, the leader sang a melody and the audience repeated it. This is the most common structure of West African melodies.

West African music has two major aspects, rhythm and melody. Rhythm is usually the most important, a West African song is a multi rhythm with two or more conflicting rhythms. The most common form of multi rhythm in West Africa is a cross rhythm consisting of repeated semitones, or a 3 beat mode played in 2 beats in the same space. Rhythms are usually played with percussion instruments and can also be played from the sound of dance. Melodies can be played in African harps or guitar, but the most common is sound. The typical pattern here is a call and reply, the leader creates a melody and others repeat it. In addition, many songs encourage leaders to improvise new rhythms and melodies, whistling, cheering, applauding, pedaling, heartless, or using emotions of almost every other soloist It makes it possible.