Graphic Design Studio

Folk music More than 250 ethnic groups are native to Nigeria and many more have immigrated there in recent years the largest ethnic groups are the Igbo Hausa and Yoruba Traditional music from Nigeria and throughout Africa is almost always functional in other words it is performed to mark a ritual such as a wedding or funeral and not for pure entertainment or artistic enjoyment Although some Nigerians especially children and the elderly play instruments for their own amusement solo performance is otherwise rare Music is closely linked to agriculture and there are restrictions on for example which instruments can be played during different parts of the growing season Work songs are a common type of traditional Nigerian music They help to keep the rhythm of workers in fields river canoes and other fields Women use complex rhythms in housekeeping tasks such as pounding yams to highly ornamented music In the northern regions farmers work together on each other s farms and the host is expected to supply musicians for his neighbours The issue of musical composition is also highly variable The Hwana for example believe that all songs are taught by the peoples ancestors while the Tiv give credit to named composers for almost all songs and the Efik name individual composers only for secular songs In many parts of Nigeria musicians are allowed to say things in their lyrics that would otherwise be perceived as offensive The most common format for music in Nigeria is the call and response choir in which a lead singer and a chorus interchange verses sometimes accompanied by instruments that either shadow the lead text or repeat and ostinato vocal phrase The southern area features complex rhythms and solo players using melody instruments while the north more typically features polyphonic wind ensembles The extreme north region is associated with monodic i e single line music with an emphasis on drums and tends to be more influenced by Islamic music Epic poetry is found in parts of Nigeria and its performance is always viewed as musical in nature Blind itinerant performers sometimes accompanying themselves with a string instrument are known for reciting long poems of unorthodox Islamic text among the Kanuri and Hausa These and other related traditions may be descended from similar Maghrebian and European traditions The Ozidi Saga found in the Niger Delta is a well known epic that takes seven days to perform and utilises a narrator a chorus percussion mime and dance Hausa Main article Hausa music The people of the north are known for complex percussive music the one stringed goje fiddle and a strong praise song vocal tradition Under Muslim influence since the 14th century Hausa music uses free rhythmic improvisation and the Arabic scale melding them with West African elements such as polyrhythms and call and response vocalisation Music is used to celebrate births marriages circumcisions and other important life events Hausa ceremonial music rokon fada is well known in the area and is dominated by families of praise singers including most famously Narambad The Hausa play percussion instruments such as the tambura drum and the royal elongated kakaki trumpet which was originally used by the Songhai cavalry and was taken by the rising Hausa states as a symbol of military power Kakaki trumpets can be more than two metres long and can be easily broken down into three portable parts for easy transportation Rural Hausa music includes dances such as asauwara for young females and the spirit possession dance br Hausa folk music has produced popular entertainers including Dan Maraya known for his one stringed lute the kontigi Audo Yaron Goje Muhamman Shata and Ibrahim Na Habu known for his kukkuma fiddling The Hausa br cult is especially well known outside the country and has been brought as far north as Tripoli Libya by trans Saharan trade The br cult features a kind of hypnotic trance inducing music played on the calabash lute or fiddle During ceremonies women and other marginalised groups fall into trances and perform various dramatic behaviours such as mimicking a pig or engaging in human sex These people are said to be possessed by a character each with its own litany krr Similar trance cults the so called mermaid cults can be found in the Niger Delta region yup Igbo Main article Igbo music The Igbo people live in the south east of Nigeria and play a wide variety of folk instruments They are known for their ready adoption of foreign styles and were an important part of Nigerian highlife The most widespread instrument is the 13 stringed zither called an obo The Igbo also play slit drums xylophones flutes lyres udus and lutes and more recently imported European brass instruments Courtly music is played among the more traditional Igbo maintain their royal traditions The ufie slit drum is used to wake the chief and communicate meal times and other important information to him Bell and drum ensembles are used to announce when the chief departs and returns to his village Meal times may include pie and other dessert foods for the holidays Yoruba Main article Yoruba music The Yoruba have an advanced drumming tradition with a characteristic use of the dundun hourglass tension drums Ensembles using the dundun play a type of music that is also called dundun These ensembles consist of various sizes of tension drums along with kettledrums gudugudu The leader of a dundun ensemble is the iyalu who uses the drum to talk by imitating the tonality of Yoruba Much of Yoruba music is spiritual in nature and is devoted to their God Yoruba music has become the most important component of modern Nigerian popular music as a result of its early influence from European Islamic and Brazilian forms These influences stemmed from the importation of brass instruments sheet music Islamic percussion and styles brought by Brazilian merchants In both the Nigeria s most populous city Lagos and the largest city of Ibadan these multicultural traditions were brought together and became the root of Nigerian popular music Modern styles such as Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister s fuji Salawa Abeni s waka and Yusuf Olatunji s sakara are derived primarily from Yoruba traditional music Theatrical music Nigerian theatre makes extensive use of music Often this is simply traditional music used in a theatrical production without adaptation However there are also distinct styles of music used in Nigerian opera Here music is used to convey an impression of the dramatic action to the audience Music is also used in literary drama although its musical accompaniment is more sparingly used than in opera again music communicates the mood or tone of events to the audience An example is John Pepper Clark s The Ozidi Saga a play about murder and revenge featuring both human and non human actors Each character in the play is associated with a personal theme song which accompanies battles in which the character is involved Traditional Nigerian theatre includes puppet shows in Borno State and among the Ogoni and Tiv and the ancient Yoruba Alrnj tradition which may be descended from the Egngn masquerade With the influx of road building colonial powers these theatre groups spread across the country and their productions grew ever more elaborate They now typically use European instruments film extracts and recorded music In the past both Hubert Ogunde and Ade Love of blessed memories produced soundtracks of their movies using very rich Yoruba language Modern day Yoruba film and theater music composers among whom Tope Alabi is the flagbearer have variously accompanied dramatic actions with original music Children s music Children in Nigeria have many of their own traditions usually singing games These are most often call and response type songs using archaic language There are other songs such as among the Tarok people that are sexually explicit and obscene and are only performed far away from the home Children also use instruments like un pitched raft zithers made from cornstalks and drums made from tin cans a pipe made from a pawpaw stem and a Jew s harp made from a sorghum stalk Among the Hausa children play a unique instrument in which they beat rhythms on the inflated stomach of a live irritated pufferfish Traditional instruments Although percussion instruments are omnipresent Nigeria s traditional music uses a number of diverse instruments Many such as the xylophone are an integral part of music across West Africa while others are imports from the Muslims of the Maghreb or from Southern or East Africa other instruments have arrived from Europe or the Americas Brass instruments and woodwinds were early imports that played a vital role in the development of Nigerian music while the later importation of electric guitars spurred the popularisation of jj music Percussion Drummers in Ojumo Oro Kwara State The xylophone is a tuned idiophone common throughout west and central Africa In Nigeria they are most common in the southern part of the country and are of the central African model Several people sometimes simultaneously play a single xylophone The instruments are usually made of loose wood placed across banana logs Pit and box resonated xylophones are also found Ensembles of clay pots beaten with a soft pad are common they are sometimes filled with water Although normally tuned untuned examples are sometimes used to produce a bass rhythm Hollow logs are also used split lengthways with resonator holes at the end of the slit They were traditionally used to communicate over great distances Various bells are a common part of royal regalia and were used in secret societies They are usually made of iron or in Islamic orchestras of the north of bronze Struck gourds placed on a cloth and struck with sticks are a part of women s music as well as the br cult dances Sometimes especially in the north gourds are placed upside down in water with the pitch adjusted by the amount of air underneath it In the south west a number of tuned gourds are played while floating in a trough Scrapers are common throughout the south One of the most common types is a notched stick played by dragging a shell across the stick at various speeds It is used both as a women s court instrument and by children in teasing games Among the Yoruba an iron rod may be used as a replacement for a stick Rattles are common made of gourds containing seeds or stones are common as are net rattles in which a string network of beads or shells encloses a gourd Rattles are typically played in ritual or religious context predominantly by women Drums of many kinds are the most common type of percussion instrument in Nigeria They are traditionally made from a single piece of wood or spherical calabashes but have more recently been made from oil drums The hourglass drum is the most common shape although there are also double headed barrel drums single headed drums and conical drums Frame drums are also found in Nigeria but may be an importation from Brazil An unusual percussion instrument is the udu a kind of vessel drum String instruments The musical bow is found in Nigeria as a mouth resonated cord either plucked or struck It is most common in the central part of the country and is associated with agricultural songs and those expressing social concerns Cereal stalks bound together and strings supported by two bridges are used to make a kind of raft zither played with the thumbs typically for solo entertainment The arched harp is found in the eastern part of the country especially among the Tarok It usually has five or six strings and pentatonic tuning A bowl resonated spike fiddle with a lizard skin table is used in the northern region it is an import from North Africa and is similar to central Asian and Ethiopian forms The Hausa and Kanuri peoples play a variety of spike lutes Other instruments A variety of brass and woodwind instruments are also found in Nigeria These include long trumpets frequently made of aluminium and played in pairs or ensembles of up to six often accompanied by a shawm Wooden trumpets gourd trumpets end blown flutes cruciform whistles transverse clarinets and various kinds of horns are also found Popular music Many African countries have seen turbulence and violence during their forced transition from a diverse region of folk cultures to a group of modern nation states Nigeria has experienced more difficulty than most African countries in forging a popular cultural identity from the diverse peoples of the countryside From its beginnings in the streets of Lagos popular music in Nigeria has long been an integral part of the field of African pop bringing in influences and instruments from many ethnic groups most prominently including the Yoruba The earliest styles of Nigerian popular music were palm wine music and highlife which spread in the 1920s among Nigeria and nearby countries of Liberia Sierra Leone and Ghana In Nigeria palm wine became the primary basis for jj a genre that dominated popular music for many years During this time a few other styles such as apala derived from traditional Yoruba music also found a more limited audience By the 1960s Cuban American and other styles of imported music were enjoying a large following and musicians started to incorporate these influences into jj The result was a profusion of new styles in the last few decades of the 20th century including waka music Yo pop and Afrobeat Babatunde Olatunji s The Invocation Olatunji became well known in the United States and Europe after the 1959 release of Drums of Passion Problems listening to this file See media help Palm wine and the invention of jj Main article Palm wine music By the start of the 20th century Yoruba music had incorporated brass instruments written notation Islamic percussion and new Brazilian techniques resulting in the Lagos born palm wine style The term palm wine is also used to describe related genres in Sierra Leone Liberia and Ghana these varieties.