An instrument that consists of two matching sticks and are played by striking them together. These are often used to mark time during songs.
What are Makata Sticks?
100
This instrument is a membranophone with a goblet-shaped body. Originating in Western Africa, this instrument is primarily used as a soloistic voice which alternates rhythms with larger, deeper-toned drums.
What is a Djembe?
100
This region of music has strong Arabic influences due to the Islamic expansion during the middle ages. This music is almost always accompanied by Arabic songs.
What is Northern Africa?
100
According to a census completed on July 1, 2016, this continent comprises of approximately 20 percent of the world's land mass and has a population of roughly 1.223 billion people.
What is Africa?
100
This is the one function that connects almost all Sub-Saharan music genres.
What is dancing or dance music?
200
Originating in Central Africa, this instrument is made of wood and is often fashioned in the shape of animals. It is related in many ways to the Talking Drums of Central Africa.
What is a gong?
200
Isicathamiya (pronounced with a dental click instead of the "c") is a genre of music which employs this technique in which one leader sings a phrase of music, and a mixed-gender choir in 4 part harmony sings an answering phrase. Phrases are traded in this manner throughout the song.
What is call and response technique?
200
In this region of Africa, Kenyans have traditionally made a wide variety of intricate musical instruments out of gourds, shells, leaves, horns, hides, and other natural materials
What is Eastern Africa?
200
These are the five geographical regions of Africa.
What is Northern, Eastern, Central, Western, and Southern Africa?
200
This form of cultural expression and music are so often inter-related that many African tribes do not have two separate words for these entities.
What is dance?
300
This instrument is a type of lyre originating in Eastern Africa. Players of this instrument often wear jingles on their ankles which they play simultaneously.
What is a Thum?
300
This technique consists of continually repeated rhythms and pitches
What is an ostinato?
300
In this region of Africa, the Ghana Empire’s golden age began after camels were domesticated and able to transport salt, gold and ivory as far as the Middle East, North Africa and even Europe.
What is Western Africa?
300
Mainly found in Cameroon and Congo, traditional music among the Pygmies from this region of Africa, is vocal and rich in polyphonic harmony.
What is Central Africa?
300
This form of body percussion is a traditional accompaniment to music throughout Eastern Africa.
What is clapping?
400
This membranophone originated in the Yoruban tribes of Nigeria, in Western Africa. It consists of a hook-shaped beater and a small hand drum. Tightening the strings which connect the two heads of the drum produces a higher pitch when the drum is struck.
What is a Yoruban Talking Drum?
400
This is the only type of African drum that the RHS Music Department owns. Often sold in sets of 2 or 4 commercially, this instrument originated in Western/Central Africa.
What is a (set of) Congo drum(s)?
400
Court culture thrived in this African region, giving birth to griots which are similar to European bards.
What is Western Africa?
400
The Dagomba tribe from this region of Africa is well known for its genre of music known as Dance Drumming.
What is Western Africa?
400
In Eastern Africa, many dancers carry small versions of this instrument to play while they are dancing.
What is a drum?
500
Originating in Southern Africa (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, etc.), this vocal technique consists of individual notes of a melody which are sung by different musicians. The overall effect sounds similar to yodeling
What is a Hocket technique?
500
This chordophone originated in Western Africa. Griots are trained in the performance of these lutes from a very early age. This instrument is often highly decorated and resembles a Western harp with the exception of its resonating chamber and sound hole.
What is the Kora?
500
Pygmy songs of this region describe life hunting and gathering, and survival. The choral music is built up from continuously varied repetitions of a short basic ostinato that takes shape as different voices enter and fill out the texture.
What is Central Africa?
500
The Khoi and the San were originally from this region of Africa and used dental clicks in their language. These distinct clicks, once found nowhere else in Africa, have been incorporated into Zulu speech.
What is Southern Africa?
500
This term refers to a rhythm so complex that it cannot be written with standard Western music notation.