Transcription
Standard, written notation of heard music.
Metronomic Sense
In African music, a steady, underlying beat (like that of a metronome) played through the performance.
Overlapping call-and-response
In African music, a solo vocalist sings one line (often improvised) and the group responds in an overlapping chorus.
Synchopation
Changing up the rhythm by accenting weaker beats.
Polyrhythm
Intricate web of rhythms heard among the different parts (cross-rhythms).
Ring Shout
A rhythmic religious dance. Worshipers moved counterclockwise in a circle while singing spirituals, and clapping and stamping to keep the beat.
Front Line
Lead (melody) instruments in early jazz bands: trumprt (or cornet), trombone, and clarinet.
Ndungu
Long drums from Congo
Mbira
An African thumb piano. Several reeds stretched across a wooden board.
“lining out”
A European tradition- leader chants a psalm verse one or two lines at a time, congregation sings back the lines, often elaborating on the original tune.
Spirituals
African American songs that arose in the nineteenth century and consisted of religious lyrics with folk melodies.
Gullah
Vibrant, preserved African culture of the Sea Islands off the eastern coast of the U.S.
Blue note
Neutral third or seventh; a bent, slurred, or worried note.
Pentatonic Scale
A five-note set that avoids the interval of a tritone and can be arranged as a series of perfect fourths or fifths.