African_Music

African Music HAMPTON UNIVERSITY HAMPTON, VIRGINIA THE HUMANITIES PROGRAM African Culture: The Elements of African Language and Music The art that derives from our sense of hearing is music. The basic elements of music are sound and silence. Music has many purposes within all societies. Most music performed by Africans is part of a social activity and is viewed as a sharing experience for everyone. African music is generally classified into two main style areas, which are Arab North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. There are many unique regional music styles, including a immense influence from the Islamic faith which extends across the savanna region and down the east coast. Within African music, there are many types of percussion instruments, including the drums, clap-sticks, bells, rattles, slit gongs, struck gourds and clay pots, stamping tubes, and xylophones. There are two basic types of xylophone. The frame xylophones, in which the keys are attached to a frame. The lamellaphone, which is also known as the thumb piano, is found throughout the continent of Africa. The mbira, kalimba, and likembe, are a series of metal or bamboo strips mounted on a board or box. African drums come in many shapes and sizes. Wood, pans, and pottery are used to construct drum bodies. The membranes are usually made from animal skins. There are many types of African drums which range from drum-chimes, languages, africa, language, music, spoken, african, one, people, within, style, number, important, found, branch, types, societies, played, often, north, nigeria, niger, west, traditions, southern, savanna, role, parts, part, northern, musicians, life, large, instruments, hausa, groups, flutes, elements, coast, bantu, africans, xylophones, world, wood, widely, vocal, various, values, understand