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KOKO – YIRI
A bit about African Music...
 Music is learned through ORAL TRADITION (learning by listening and not reading written
music).
 The ‘Griot’ (master drummer of the village) teaches the drum beats to his sons or young people
in the village. The music is passed on from generation to generations.
 Very similar way of learning like in traditional folk music and Indian music.
 Apart from Drumming, SINGNING is an important part in everyday life in Africa.
 People always sing for celebrations, birthdays, weddings, funerals, harvests (farming) and
rituals.
 They sing in their African Dialect.
 Tuned Instruments like BALAFON (sounds like a wooden xylophone), KORA (sounds like
guitar) and MBIRA (thumb piano has a springy sound) are used to play the tunes.
 Percussion instruments such as DJEMBE are used to play the drum beats.
KEY FEATURES OF AFRICAN MUSIC:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Cross rhythms (beats crossing each other) and Polyrhythms (different beats played together)
Polyphony (texture): lots of melodies played together
Heterophony (texture): all parts play different versions of the same tune, in different pitches)
Repetition, repetition, repetition.....(ostinato)
Call and response (one instrument play a melody, the other instruments repeat the same
melody)
6. Improvisation
About YIRI ...
The band KOKO is from Burkina Faso (in West Africa).
The name of the song is YIRI and it’s a West African (Sub Saharan) Song.
Structure:
Starts with a SOLO by the BALAFON.
The balafon also plays rolls up and down the keys (hitting one or two notes really fast, continuously).
2nd BALAFON joins in (low pitch).
Then Both balafons play the theme before the drums comes in.
The balafons play polyrhythms and improvise lots of melodies based around the original theme.
They also play in hetereophony (see above for definition).
They either compliment the vocal lines or help the drum part rhythmically.
They play synchopated rhythms (playing notes on the odd beats, not strong beats)
DRUMS play the same rhythm throughout the whole piece! This is called Ostinato.
This is the rhythm...
Ta... tata Ta... tata
Ta...tata Ta...tata
You can hear low (big drums) and high pitched drums (small).
Drums are hit with beaters (dundun and donno) or hands (like the Djembe).
The rhythm changes slightly towards the end of the piece.
There are few moments of pauses – this signals the players that the piece is about to finish.
VOCALS – start all singing in unison (together).
The tune is quite repetitive.
Lots of call and response between the singers (soloist sings a phrase, others respond in unison).
The call by the soloist is longer than the response. The soloist hold some of the notes on for quite a few
bars.
Towards the end of the piece everyone sings in unison.
At the end, ALL the instruments stop, except for the bell, which plays a final ‘ting!’.
---------------------------------------------------------------TIMRE (tone colour) and TEXTURE (layers of parts)
Starts off with a single balafon
Then timbre changes gradually when 2nd balafon and then the drums comes in.
Vocal unison and call and response produce two new timbres.
Texture is simple to begin with but build up later on: polyphony and heterophony.
YIRI is polyphonic.
There are at least 4 distinct parts: 2 balafons, drums and singers. They are all independent of each other.