Afro – American Music

Prepared by:
Ms. Ellaine S. Custodio
 Kolohe Kai – Ehu Girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFYcI3U7XG0
 The African slave
brought with them the
banshaw in the 17th
century. This is what is
known today as the banjo.
While in America, the banshaw

slaves created drums and

percussion instruments,
which they used to
accompany their singing.
banduria
 The music that
developed while working
on plantations in the
Southern region was called
holler songs or work songs.
These songs followed a
“call and response”
sequence, which is similar
to antiphonal singing used
in sacred music.
 From the work or holler songs,
there evolved other subgenres:
gospel songs, blues, and country
music. The most widespread of
which was thee spiritual.
 Ride the Chariot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruwbcF0MmPA
Ragtime
Black musicians during
the 19th century would call
syncopated rhythms as a way
of “ragging” a tune. Scott Joplin
Syncopations were done on
instruments as they were
used; eventually, syncopation
referred to the piano music
that we call today as ragtime.
 Maple Leaf Rag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAtL7n_-rc
Blues
The blues are considered one of the
simplest musical genres that evolved from the
music of black or African – Americans. Blues
require flexibility and high level of improvisation in
their performance. Basically, blues music is
structured on three main chords: (1) tonic, (2)
subdominant, and (3) dominant triads with its
minor seventh included to form the chord.
 St. Louis Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJly4gM-2mI
Jazz
Began in New Orleans during the late 19th
century. Jazz has been acknowledge as the most
creative and complex genre of music America has
produced.
Jazz is very dynamic, as it constantly evolves
and develops into new subgenres. Jazz music possess
the ability to be unique in its every performance.
There are quite a number of jazz subgenres, but
this lesson focuses on the popular early types, which
have become the foundation of the different types of
modern jazz that we know today.
Dixieland – one of the early
forms of jazz, Dixieland started
in the early 1920s In New
Orleans. Dixieland is a
combination of the traditions of
blues, ragtime, and brass bands.
Dixieland is often played on a
band with trumpet cornet,
trombone, clarinet, saxophone,
banjo, piano, string bass, and
drums.
Two of the most prominent Dixieland
performers are jazz trumpeter Louis
Armstrong and Pianist Jelly Roll Morton

Louis Armstrong Jelly Roll Morton

Basin Street Blues
Big band - following the
steps of Dixieland is the
big band, another jazz
subgenre, which saw its
rise in the 1920s. Big
band is composed of 10
or more players with
basically same
instrumentation as that
Dixieland.
 Don’t Mean A Thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg
Bebop - Big band was
followed by bebop in the
1940s. A bebop group
relatively small, as compared
to the big bands of the 1920s,
with just four to six musicians.
Unlike big band music, bebop
is not suitable for dancing.
Bebop also gave rise to
“scatting” – style or singing
that uses syllables sung to
improvised melodies.
 One Note Samba
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O44Hu8Qcm58