Call and response (music)
[1] Additionally, they can take form as commentary to a statement, an answer to a question or repetition of a phrase following or slightly overlapping the initial speaker(s).
In many African cultures, call and response is a pervasive pattern of democratic participation—in public gatherings in the discussion of civic affairs, in religious rituals, as well as in vocal and instrumental musical expression.
It can also be found in the music of the Afro-Caribbean populations of Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, and many nations of the diaspora, especially Brazil.
Scottish Gaelic psalm-singing by prepresentinge line was the earliest form of congregational singing adopted by Africans in America.
The New Grove Dictionary defines antiphony as "music in which an ensemble is divided into distinct groups, used in opposition, often spatial, and using contrasts of volume, pitch, timbre, etc.
"[13] Early examples can be found in the music of Giovanni Gabrieli, one of the renowned practitioners of the Venetian polychoral style: Gabrieli also contributed many instrumental canzonas, composed for contrasting groups of players: Heinrich Schütz was one of the first composers to realise the expressive potential of the polychoral style in his "Little Sacred Concertos".
", a vivid setting of the narrative of the Conversion of Paul as told in Acts 9 verses 3-4: "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
"The musical phrase on which most of the concerto is built is sounded immediately by a pair of basses":[14] This idea is "then taken up by the alto and tenor, then by the sopranos, and finally by the pair of violins as transition to the explosive tutti":[14] "The syncopated repetitions of the name Saul are strategically planted so that, when the whole ensemble takes them up, they can be augmented into hockets resounding back and forth between the choirs, adding to the impression of an enveloping space And achieving in sound something like the effect of the surrounding light described by the Apostle.
According to John Eliot Gardiner, in this "intimate and touching" work, Bach “goes many steps beyond the manipulation of spatially separate blocks of sound” and “finds ways of weaving all eight lines into a rich contrapuntal tapestry.”[16]
The development of the classical orchestra in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries exploited the dramatic potential of antiphonal exchanges between groups of instruments.
Here, the development culminates in a "singularly dramatic passage"[17] consisting of a "strange sequence of block harmonies":[18] Twentieth century works that feature antiphonal exchanges include the second movement of Béla Bartók's Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta (1936) and Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1938).
A similar question-and-answer exchange occurs in the 1942 film Casablanca between Sam (Dooley Wilson) and the band in the song "Knock On Wood": CALL: Who's got trouble?
