Influential Elements of African Music

The presentation of a steady rhythmic pulse at a consistent tempo.

• Unique Timbres

• Improvisation

• Swing Feeling

• Motor Rhythm

A religious song of a kind associated with Black Christians of the southern US, and thought to derive from the combination of European hymns and African musical elements by enslaved Black people.

• Spiritual

• Field Holler

• Work Song

Displacing regular accents in music by emphasizing notes that don’t align with the beat/pulse/motor rhythm.

• Swing Feeling

• Blue Notes

• Syncopation

• Motor Rhythm

"Flattened"/lowered tones of the scale, usually the 3rd and 7th scale degrees.

• Unique Timbres

• Improvisation

• Syncopation

• Blue Notes

A steady rhythmic song, utilizing call and response between task leader and other workers.

• Spiritual

• Field Holler

• Work Song

Basic feeling of long-short-long-short, instead of equal subdivision of note values.

• Swing Feeling

• Syncopation

• Improvisation

• Motor Rhythm

The individual character of timbre in both vocal and instrumental music.

• Blue Notes

• Swing Feeling

• Unique Timbres

• Improvisation

A non-rhythmic chant sung by a solitary worker, usually while plowing or harvesting.

• Spiritual

• Field Holler

• Work Song

The spontaneous creation of a performer.

• Improvisation

• Syncopation

• Swing Feeling

• Blue Notes