什么是非洲音乐

撒哈拉沙漠以南非洲的音乐。虽然非洲是文化各异的巨大地理区，其音乐却有若干统一的特徵。包括「艺术音乐」（art music）在内的非洲传统音乐靠口耳相传，因此乐曲不以完成作品的形式存在，但被视为每次演出皆有所不同的再创造。另一个特点是「呼叫与回应」的普遍使用。除了心灵及庆祝方面和伴舞的角色以外，非洲音乐也有独特的政治角色。音乐史官（griot）唱出部族的历史，也创造了赞美领袖的歌曲，或在社区对领袖存有负面观感时做出嘲讽歌曲。歌词与音乐的结合，导致演出纯粹器乐曲子时令人联想到歌词。非洲音乐大致是即兴的，仅仅运用有限的对位（包括类似模仿的轮回，可能是呼叫与回应重叠的结果）。虽然旋律常伴随着平行的间隔，创造出一种和弦的质感，而真正的复音音乐由姆勃拉琴（mbira）演奏，在此，由双手演奏的旋律被视为个别存在的，节奏在非洲受到高度发展。西方人倾向於把同时的模式视为共有一个步调，非洲人则把这样的模式视为出发点不同的周期。外来的影响在非洲音乐中扮演一定的角色，其中伊斯兰教尤其重要。近代，西方音乐可以相容的元素已经与本土元素混合起来，虽然在流行音乐中，这些西方的影响比较可能藉着阿拉伯及印度范例而来。北非的音乐代表着另一个分立的传统（参阅Middle Eastern）。

African music

Music of sub-Saharan Africa. Though a vast geographical area with diverse cultures, Africa's music has a number of unifying traits. Its traditional music, including its “art music,” is orally transmitted; thus, pieces do not exist as finished works, but are conceived of as recreated somewhat differently with each performance. Another general characteristic is the prevalence of “call and response.” Aside from its spiritual and celebratory and dance-accompanying roles, African music has a distinctly political role; the griot sings the tribe's history and creates songs of praise for the leader, or mocking songs when community feeling is running against the leader. The association of words with music extends to the existence of words to be thought while performing purely instrumental pieces. Being largely improvisational, African music employs only limited counterpoint (including roundlike imitation that may be an outgrowth of overlapping calls and responses), though melodies are often accompanied in parallel intervals, creating a chordal texture, and truly polyphonic music is played on the mbira, where the melodies performed by the two hands are conceived as separate. Rhythm is highly developed in Africa. Whereas Westerners tend to perceive simultaneous patterns as sharing a common meter, Africans think of such patterns as cycles with different starting points. Outside influences have played a role in African music, most importantly Islam. In recent times, compatible elements of Western music have mixed with indigenous elements, though in popular music these Western influences more likely arrived via Arabic and Indian examples. The music of North Africa represents a separate tradition (see Middle Eastern music).