Dancers in the village of Zogore, Burkina Faso perform with jingles attached to their legs accenting certain steps. A seated drummer on the far left provides a steady beat.
In Book I of Africn Polyphony and Polyrhythm, Simha Arom is presenting the general features of traditional music. The fundamental characteristic he feels is temporal organization. Music in Central African societies is “a succession of sound capable of giving rise to a segmentation of time during which it flows in isochronous units. The music is always measured and should be “danceable”. ”. (Arom, 11) (more…)
Music, Polyphony and Polyrhythm 