Ewe Music - Characteristics

Characteristics

Jones describes two "rules" (p.24 and p.17, capitalization his):

1. The Unit of Time Rule or the Rule of Twos and Threes: "African phrases are built up of the numbers 2 or 3, or their multiples: or of a combination of 2 and 3 or of the multiples of this combination. Thus a phrase of 10 will be (2 + 3) + (2 + 3) or (2 + 2 + 2) + 4.
2. The Rule of Repeats: "The repeats within an African song are an integral part of it." If a song is formally "A + A + B + B + B" one cannot leave out, say, one of the B sections.

He also lists the following "Features of African Music" (p. 49):

1. "Songs appear to be in free rhythm but most of them have a fixed time-background.
2. The rule of 2 and 3 in the metrical build of songs.
3. Nearly all rhythms which are used in combination are made from simple aggregates of a basic time-unit. A quaver is always a quaver.
4. The claps or other time-background impart no accent what-ever to the song.
5. African melodies are additive: their time-background is divisive.
6. The principle of cross-rhythms.
7. The rests within and at the end of a song before repeats are an integral part of it.
8. Repeats are an integral part of the song: they result in many variations of the call and response form (see summary).
9. The call and response type of song is usual in Africa .
10. African melodies are diatonic: the major exception being the sequence dominant-sharpened subdominant-dominant.
11. Short triplets are occasionally used.
12. The teleological trend: many African songs lean towards the ends of the lines: it is at the ends where they are likely to coincide with their time-background.
13. Absence of the fermata."