The Music-Culture as a World of Music
Additional general vocabulary
Black America
Native America
Africa
100

All the sounds that can be heard in a particular place.

What is a soundscape?

100

This is the term for a single, unaccompanied melodic line.

What is monophony?

100

This term refers both to certain lowered notes of a scale as well as pitch spaces (rather than specific pitches).

What are blue notes?

100

Leads, seconds, songmakers, and drum carriers are part of this genre of music.

What are drum circles?

100

This type of drumming is associated with war.

What is Agbekor, of the Ewe people?
200

The color and quality of a tone produced by an instrument or voice.

What is timbre?

200
A repeating rhythmic or melodic pattern.

What is an ostinato?

200

In this form of a blues verse, the first line is repeated and then the third line closes out the thought with a rhyme.

What is a three-line stanza?

200

It is the state of being truly at peace with yourself and your surroundings.

What is hozho?

200

This contemporary African music genre includes horns, organ, percussion, guitars, and voices, and a single song can last nearly 30 minutes.

What is Afrobeat?

300

Judging a group by standards they themselves do not recognize.

What is ethnocentricity?

300

These are nonlexical symbols which do not have a direct translation, but may nonetheless have meaning.

What are vocables?

300

This type of Black American music is shared, participatory, uses many genres, incorporates musical prayers/sermons, and is affective.

What is worship music?

300

This is the term for a verse in a Native American powwow song.

What is a push-up?

300

The forest is a part of the music in this culture's songs.

Who are the BaAka?

400

The act of creating or performing a piece of music spontaneously or without, according to the rules or expectations of a given genre. 

What is improvisation?

400

As opposed to formal study, some music is learned this way, by the process of gradually acquiring cultural competency by living in a community.

What is enculturation?

400

A style of blues music exemplified by T-Bone Walker and BB King which features electric instruments, sax/horn section, and an emphasis on lead guitar work.

What is urban blues?

400

The Nightway ceremony and Yeibichei song come from this tribe.

Who are the Navajo?

400

In this style of music, all polyrhythms can be understood by their relationship to the bell (gankogui).

What is Agbekor?

500

Its four elements are Affective Experience, Performance, Community, and Memory/History.

What is the Music-Culture model?

500

Rhythm/meter, melody, texture, and form are all ways to describe this aspect of music.

What is musical structure?

500

A style of music founded in truth, often autobiographical, and thought of as both a form and a feeling.

What is the blues?

500

This song from the Shona people uses the thumb piano, or mbira.

What is Nhemamusasa?

500

This WOMAN incorporates traditional sounds and political themes into her contemporary African music.

Who is Wiyaala?