Download Yiri` Koko - davenantperformingarts

‘Yiri’ – Koko
KEYWORDS
Improvisation
Call and Response
Ostinato
Cross-Rhythms
Polyphonic
Polyrhythmic
Oral Tradition
African Drumming
Balaphones
Burkina Faso
Instrumental Music
Choral Song
Tribal Music
Repetition
Improvisation
Drums (Membranophones)
Djembe
DunDun
Donno (talking drum)
Master Drummer
Cue
Timeline
Theme and Variations
Cyclic Structures
Syncopation
CONTEXT
African Music in Society










Sub-Saharan African music = rich, diverse and colourful
Covers a range of 50 different nations
Each nation has its own musical traditions and languages
Music plays an important role in African society
Music used to communicate different feelings and emotions
Music important in social gatherings: weddings, harvest, birthday, funeral.
Music combined with speech, dance and vibrant costumes = exciting and dramatic performances
‘Yiri’ = strong emphasis on dance
Dancers = vivid costumes, body painting and elaborate masks
Stories told through body actions and mime
African Music
 3 main areas:
 Drumming
 Choral Song (tribal music)
 Instrumental music
 Repetition:
o Repeating a section of music. Just a few notes or a whole section.
 Improvisation:
o Music is made up spontaneously (on-the-spot) without written notation.
 Polyphony:
o 2 or more independent parts playing different things at the same time. Multi-layered
texture
 Call and Response:
o Solo (call) followed by a group answering (response) a phrase.
African Drumming
 Drum considered to be most important of all instruments
 Drum = form of communication
 Different rhythms mean different things
 Hundreds of drums, different in every region




DJEMBE is the most common African drum (single-headed), goblet shaped, West Africa
DUNDUN, Double Headed Drum
DONNO, Known as the Talking Drum, held under the arm, played with the hand
The drums can be played in various ways:
o Playing hands on skin of drum – different sounds when fingers open/closed
o Playing hands on wooden edge of drum
o Using sticks = sharp, staccato sound
o Stretching drum membrane to produce different pitches (mainly donno)
African Music – Performance
 Oral tradition: no musical notation.
 Master drummer directs whole performance (signals to start often with a vocal cry)
 Performs a rhythmic solo to set mood and tempo – called a cue.
 Cueing happens throughout the performance – creates structure and contrasting sections
 Players then come in together and play a response
 Response could be the same or different to the Master Drummer’s rhythm.
 Call and response = main feature of tribal music
 Other players perform solos when Master Drummer signals to them
 Solos = variations/development of original rhythmic pattern
 Steady continuous beat performed by Master Drummer = ‘timeline’
 Performance can also include percussion rattle or bells – most common are agogo bells.
 Music increases in tension as the piece progresses
 Tempo and dynamics vary from section to section
 Master drummer controls change - music must not become monotonous
 Performances can take up to 5 hours
African Music – Performance Texture
 Complex rhythms played by drummers create polyrhtyhms
 Stresses conflict with each other and the ‘timeline’ creating cross-rhythms
 Polyrhthmic texture
African Music – Choral Singing
 Sub-Saharan Africa = centred around singing
 Music serves as a link to the spirit world
 African languages = tone languages
 Tone languages = pitch level (high or low) determines meaning of words
 Melodies and rhythms can be made to fit pitch outlines to match meanings and speech rhythms
of words
African Songs – Common Features
 Basic form is call and response
 Short simple melodies, repeated over and over
 Melodies = scale of only 4, 5, 6 or 7 different tones
 Melodies changed and developed throughout a piece = theme and variations
 Singers improvise new melodies over original melody = polyphonic textures
 Music can often be sung in rounds
 Ever-changing musical textures
 Harmony varies from tribe to tribe = some sing in unison or parallel octaves, with odd fourths or
fifths. Some will sing in thirds or fourths in 2 or 3 different parts.
African Instrumental Music
 Balaphones – xylophones = wide range of pitches
 Smaller xylophones = higher pitches
 Membrane in between bars made of natural materials such as orange peel

Common Features:
o REPETITION
o IMPROVISATION
o CYCLIC STRUCTURES
o POLYOPHONIC TEXTURES
o INTERTWINING MELODIES

Musicians in Koko are:
o vocals, balaphone, flute
o vocals, balaphone
o djembe
o vocals, tam-tam, dundun, maracas
o talking drum
o vocals, maracas





From Burkino Faso: West Africa
Burkino means ‘men of integrity’
Faso means ‘father’s house’
People from Burkino Faso are called Burkinabe
Themes in music include battle, fight for surival and the environment; creation, community
celebrations and friendship.
Three clear strands in ‘Yiri’
 Balaphone ostinati – complex polyphonic texture
 Drum ostinato – based mainly on a one-bar pattern (with a little variation)
 Vocal line – pentatonic, call and response
Constant features of ‘Yiri’
 Unvaried tempo
 Regular and unvaried beat
 Drum ostinato
 Pattern of voices and instrumental breaks
 Largely unvaried dynamics
0.00-0.18
Intro
 Free tempo, high balaphone improvised solo played at a soft dynamic.
 Monophonic texture.
 Solo balaphone in G flat major, fast high and low rolls on every note.
 Simple and repetitive.
0.18-0.34
 Moderato tempo established by first balaphone.
 Second lower-pitched balaphone joins in after bar 9 – mainly playing octaves
 Both balaphones play for rest of the piece – playing polyrhythms and independent of each other
for most of the piece.
 Strong sense of major tonality as opening two notes of melody are dominant (D flat) and tonic (G
flat).




Melody built on 2 bar phrases with a strong rhythmic basis.
Second balaphone plays the same melody but with different pitches.
Heterephonic texture – contours of melody roughly the same.
Rhythms – mainly quavers and semiquavers with some tied notes.
0.34-1.09
 Large talking drum (donno), small talking drum and djembe enter playing a half bar ostinato –
quaver, 2 semi-quavers, quaver, 2 semi-quavers
 When the drums come in they all play the same rhythm
 The drums are at different pitches (smaller = higher, larger = lower)
 Drums can get different sounds depending on how they’re played
 Balaphone play variation of original melody
 Lower balaphone plays and ostinato in bars 17-20
 Occasional djembe fills
 Melody includes syncopated rhythms and octave repetitions on tonic (G flat) and dominant (D
flat)
1.09-1.25
Chorus A1
 Voices in unison
 Melody = short, simple, repetitive
 No harmony
 Semi-quaver, quaver, semi-quaver rhythm
1.25-1.44
 Short balaphone instrumental
 Drums ostinati
1.44-2.01
Chorus A2
 Voices again – music same as before
2.01-2.10
 Voices out
 Solo instrumental on lower balaphone
 Variation in balaphone melody
2.10-2.45
 Solo with choral responses (call and response)
 New melody with long held notes and short notes on ‘Yiri’
 Vocal melody with triplet figures – variation on original melody
 Lower pitched balaphone plays same ostinato heard in bars 17-20
 Voices (choral response) in unison at bar 63
 New melodic riffs in balaphone based on original melody
2.45-3.14
 Solo voice (call) with long held notes
 Drums same as before
 Balaphones play rhythmic 3-note semiquaver melodic figure – cross-rhythms created
 Bar 71 = solo voice singing variation of original melody
 Triplets, syncopated rhythms and semi-quaver/quaver rhythms (heard before)
3.15-3.19
 Vocal response from choir in unison
3.20-3.28
 Solo voice (call) with balaphone rhythms in solo break
3.28-3.59
 Instrumental solos continue
 New melodies on balaphones
 Short rest (one bar/3 beat) rest before next chorus
4.00-4.31
Chorus B1
 Full choir in unison singing ‘Yiri’
 Short instrumental interjections to break up vocal lines
4.31-4.35
 Dialogue between voices and instruments
4.45-5.20
 Balaphone break instrumental
 Riffs with variations
 Extended section but based on original melody with variations
 Rapid figures
 Octave leaps
 Semi-quaver and demi-semi-quaver patterns
5.20-5.36
Chorus A3
 Full choir in unison
 Instrumental interjections
5.36-6.24
 Instrumental ending – balaphone break
 Syncopated
 Drums re-enter at bar 153 (one bar before coda)
6.24-end
Coda
 5 two-bar phrases – in octaves and dramatic rests
 Sense of a strong riff
 Heterophonic texture
 Drums play familiar ostinato from bar 153
 Piece concludes with a single strike on a bell