Traditional sub-Saharan African harmony

Although these principles of traditional (precolonial and pre-Arab) African music are of Pan-African validity, the degree to which they are used in one area over another (or in the same community) varies.

Various combinations of ostinato and drone-ostinato, polymelody (mainly two-part), and parallel intervals are additional polyphonic techniques frequently employed.

Several types may intermingle within one vocal or instrumental piece, with the resulting choral or orchestral tendency being the stacking of parts or voices.

Canonic imitation may occur in responsorial or antiphonal sections of African music as a result of the repetition of the first phrase or the introduction of new melodic material in the form of a refrain.

Melodic and scale considerations, as has been shown, are of primary importance in deciding what notes are employed in harmonizing tunes and, consequently, what intervals are formed.

The adaptation of parallelism to fit melodic requirements is much more apparent in the music of those areas of Africa where the pentatonic scale is the norm.

Kirby has shown how the demands of a pentatonic scale result in the employment of sixths in Bantu polyphony, where parallelism in fifths is the principle.

Lazarus Ekweme[5] quotes J. H. Kwabena Nketia saying "In chorus response, there is primacy in the sense that one line is regarded as the basic melody.

Arom Simha states "music in the Central African Republic, regardless of the kind of polyphony or polyrhythm that is practiced, always involves the principle of ostinato with variations.

Simha continues "If one had to describe in a formula all the polyphonic and polyrhythmic procedures used in the Central African Republic, one might define them as ostinato (ostinati) with variations."

Thus Riemann defines ostinato as 'a technical term that describes the continual return of a theme surrounded by ever changing counterpoint [...] The great masters of the age of polyphony loved to write a whole mass or long motets on a single phrase constantly repeated by the tenor.

Gerhard Kubik states "until recently, little attention has been paid to a further structuring element, namely, the tonal-harmonic segmentation of a cycle.

Oluwaseyi Kehinde[7] notes "it is interesting that the interval of the tritone (augmented fourth or diminished fifth) is a salient feature in both vocal and instrumental music throughout Africa” (Karlton E. Hester and Francis Tovey use the same phrase to describe it).

These vertical combinations by means of their strict repetition serve as an organizing structure to the improvised nature of the harmonic motions.

When there are at least 3 singers, the two or more upper parts follow the shape of the tune, while maintaining the intonation of the words, in parallel or similar motion.

The lowest part repeats a basic drone (pedal notes can equally be found in higher voices as well).

This technique is also applied to instrumental music.—Lazarus Ekwueme[5] The use of harmony to enhance a rhythmic accent or to emphasize a note in the melody.

Simha states[6] "In Central African polyphony, one can in fact find clusters of all the combinations of intervals allowed by the scale.

The variation principle describes the process of altering, embellishing, and modifying of melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and/or other parts of a musical structure.

He continues, "Finally, improvisation, which I have described as the driving force behind melodic and rhythmic variations, plays an important part in every group.

Arom Simha proceeds to note "We have already remarked that specific vertical combinations in each formula act as temporal reference points by virtue of their regular repetition at a given position in the periodic cycle.

They are usually based on octaves, fifths, and fourths, precisely the intervals which make up sections 1–4 of Chailley's resonance table (i960: 35), and this is certainly no accident.

This is similar to the concepts of chords and progressions in cyclical forms in Jazz, Blues and other musics of the African diaspora.

Simha concludes "All other consonances can be viewed in the same way as the result of conjunctions of different melodies, but unlike the regularly repeated ones, their content (and at times even their position) is an arbitrary consequence of the numerous melodic and, particularly, rhythmic variations allowed in the various realizations of the formula.

This is a natural consequence of the fact that musicians tend to make full use of their available resources to enrich and variegate the texture of sound when performing cyclic music."

this leads to a very lively style of variation, in which each individual voice is conceived to be linear and independent while contributing to the euphoric whole."

He continues "Where the precepts of tonal languages permit it (and this is the case in eastern Angola) we can thus find a kind of multi-part singing which transcends the "parallel harmony," so often described by authors as typical of one or the other African style.

The multi-part singing style of the peoples of eastern Angola, including the Mbwela, Luchazi, Chokwe, Luvale and others is only parallel in theory.

the creation of harmonic sound is accomplished within a relatively loose combination of individual voices, fluctuating between triads, bichords and more or less dense accumulations of notes.

the exact shape of the chords, the duplication and omissions of individual notes in the total pattern may change with every repetition."