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Music of the Central African Republic

Music of the Central African Republic includes many different forms. Western rock and pop music, as well as Afrobeat, soukous and other genres have become popular nationwide. The sanza is a popular

Popular music in the Central African Republic generally comes from the music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo or elsewhere in Africa; however, Latin, European and American pop are also common, as is jazz and rock and roll. African folktales are very popular as well, like the Panda.

Banda music#

The Banda people have produced some modern popular music, using a trumpet-based kind of jazzy music which UNESCO has called one of the “great musicological discoveries of our century”. Banda folk music includes the ongo, a kind of trumpet made from wood or antelope horn. Ongos are used in ceremonies and rituals, including adolescent initiation rites, in polyphonic ensembles of eighteen trumpets.

Pygmy music#

Formally Pygmy music consists of at most only four parts, and can be described as an, “ostinato with variations,” or similar to a passacaglia, in that it is cyclical. In fact it is based on repetition of periods of equal length, which each singer divides using different rhythmic figures specific to different repertoires and songs. This interesting case of ethnomusicology and ethnomathematics creates a detailed surface and endless variations of not only the same period repeated, but the same piece of music. As in some Balinese gamelan these patterns are based on a super-pattern which is never heard. The Pygmies themselves do not learn or think of their music in this theoretical framework, but learn the music growing up. Pygmy styles include liquindi, or water drumming, and instruments like the bow harp (ieta), ngombi (harp zither) and limbindi (a string bow) (Abram).

References#

*Abram, Dave. “Sounds From the African Rainforest”. 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 601–607. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. *

  • Audio clips: Traditional music of the Central African Republic. Musée d’ethnographie de Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.