Music is integrated into every aspect of African life. Just like religion, music and dance penetrate every level of existence.
Much music is a communal activity and the acquisition of musical sounds and genres occurs through social experience.
Today African music is known and respected for its complex polyrhythmic base and its multi-layered polyphonic music with different meters and accents creating an intricate webbing of sound. In Africa there are as many musics as there are languages. There are at least 514 officially recognised languages and many more hidden ones.
In these workshops I concentrate on the polyphonic interlocking xylophone music of the Bugandan and Busogan peoples of Uganda.
The Amadinda Orchestra consists of a large xylophone played by three people, three drums, a set of four panpipes, and a vocalist. The amadinda provides the foundation of the musical activity in which the other instruments reinforce.
I also explore the horn music of the Alur peoples of Nebbi in North West Uganda. This comprises five to twenty horn players blowing different pitched horns to create melodies. I also focus on the general characteristics of African traditional music, making reference to Pygmy music and Bambara harp music.
For these workshops video footage and audio examples are used where possible to explain and demonstrate the musical material.