Thanks to all West African flute players past and present. Tnanks to other West African musicans past and present. Thanks to all those who are associated with these YouTube examples and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these examples on YouTube. -snip- This pancocojams series was inspired by comments in https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/03/african-other-sources-of-african.html about West African flutes being sources of or influences for the African American fife and drum music traditions.
Note: I believe that all of the videos in this three part pancocojams series showcases musicians who are Fulani except for the video given as #2 in Part II. Please correct this information if I am mistaken. Thank you.
Additional Fulani and non- Fulani videos of West African musics that includes flutes has been published and will be published on pancocojams. Click the "West African music that includes flutes" to find many of these posts.
**** This concludes Part III of this three part pancocojams series.
Thanks for watching ! This Band was awesome music especially
flute guy making voice noise when he playing.I played different band that day.
Recorded At Ouagadougou Burkina Faso Feb 24 2013. -snip- Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso
**** Edited by Azizi Powell This is Part II of a three part pancocojams series about Fulani music and other West African music that includes flutes.
Part II showcases two additional videos of West African music that includes flutes.
Thanks to all West African flute players past and present. Tnanks to other West African musicans past and present. Thanks to all those who are associated with these YouTube examples and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these examples on YouTube. -snip- This pancocojams series was inspired by comments in https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/03/african-other-sources-of-african.html about West African flutes being sources of or influences for the African American fife and drum music traditions.
Note: I believe that all of the videos in this three part pancocojams series showcases musicians who are Fulani except for the video given as #2 in Part II. Please correct this information if I am mistaken. Thank you.
Additional Fulani and non- Fulani videos of West African musics that includes flutes has been published and will be published on pancocojams. Click the "West African music that includes flutes" to find many of these posts.
**** VIDEO #2
drumafricalondon, April 14, 2012
Daniel Asare, from Accra in Ghana, plays some traditional Ghanaian melodies on his flute.
*****
This concludes Part II of this three part pancocojams series.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series about Fulani music and other West African music that includes flutes.
Part I of this pancocojams series showcases a YouTube video of Fulani music from Guinea, West Africa. This post also provides information about Fulani people and Fulani flutes.
Thanks to all West African flute players past and present. Tnanks to other West African musicans past and present. Thanks to all those who are associated with these YouTube examples and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these examples on YouTube. -snip- This pancocojams series was inspired by comments in https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/03/african-other-sources-of-african.html about West African flutes being sources of or influences for the African American fife and drum music traditions.
Note: I believe that all of the videos in this three part pancocojams series showcases musicians who are Fulani except for the video given as #2 in Part II. Please correct this information if I am mistaken. Thank you.
Additional Fulani and non- Fulani videos of West African musics that includes flutes has been published and will be published on pancocojams. Click the "West African music that includes flutes" to find many of these posts.
**** INFORMATION ABOUT FULANI PEOPLE
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_people "The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people (Fula: Fulɓe, 𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤩𞤫;
French: Peul; Hausa: Fulani or Hilani; Portuguese: Fula; Wolof: Pël; Bambara:
Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa,
widely dispersed across the region.[3] Inhabiting many countries, they live
mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa but also in South
Sudan, Sudan, and regions near the Red Sea coast. The approximate number of
Fula people is unknown due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity;
various estimates put the figure between 35[4][5] and 45 million worldwide.[6]
A significant proportion of the Fula – a third, or an
estimated 12 to 13 million[7] – are pastoralists, and their ethnic group has
the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world.[8][9] The majority of the
Fula ethnic group consisted of semi-sedentary people[9] as well as sedentary
settled farmers, scholars, artisans, merchants, and nobility.[10][11] As an
ethnic group, they are bound together by the Fula language, their
history[12][13][14] and their culture. More than 98% of the Fula are
Muslims.[2][15]
[...]
Music
The Fula have a rich musical culture and play a variety of
traditional instruments including drums, hoddu (a plucked skin-covered lute
similar to a banjo), and riti or riiti (a one-string bowed instrument similar to
a violin), in addition to vocal music. The well-known Senegalese Fula musician
Baaba Maal sings in Pulaar on his recordings. Zaghareet or ululation is a
popular form of vocal music formed by rapidly moving the tongue sideways and
making a sharp, high sound.
Fulani music is as varied as its people. The numerous
sub-groups all maintain unique repertoires of music and dance. Songs and dances
reflect traditional life and are specifically designed for each individual
occasion. Music is played at any occasion: when herding cattle, working in the
fields, preparing food, or at the temple. Music is extremely important to the
village life cycle with field cultivation, harvest and winnowing of millet
performed to the rhythm of the songs and drums.
Fulani herders have a special affinity for the flute and
violin nianioru. The young Fulani shepherd like to whistle and sing softly as
they wander the silent savannah with cattle and goats. The truly Fulani
instruments are the one-string viola of the Fulani (nianioru), the flute, the
two to five string lute hoddu or molo, and the buuba and bawdi set of drums.
But they are also influenced by the other instruments of the region such as the
beautiful West African harp, the kora, and the balafon. Entertainment is the
role of certain casts. The performance of music is the realm of specialized
casts. The Griots or Awlube recite the history of the people, places and events
of the community.".... **** INFORMATION ABOUT FULANI FLUTES From https://kassaflutes.com/about written by Dave Kobrenski [no date given; retrieved March 4, 2021] "The tambin likely originated with the Fula (or Peuhl)
people, who live throughout West Africa, with large populations in Guinea and
Mali. Their flutes are also used in the traditional music of the Malinké people
in Guinea, as a result of their living in close proximity with the Fulani for
many centuries. ….
history and construction
Although it has existed for ages in West Africa, the tambin
is a little-known instrument throughout the rest of the world, although it is
slowly gaining attention for its characteristic rich sound and unique voice.
Musicians like Mamady Mansare III (the father) first brought attention to the
instrument through his playing with the Guinea national dance companies, Les
Ballets Africains and Ballet Djoliba. The international group Fula Flute
demonstrated the versatility of the instrument with their virtuoso performances
of traditional songs for the flute. A growing number of contemporary African
musicians, like Dramane Dembélé, Oumou Sangare, Issa Bagayogo, and several
others have featured the tambin in their recordings. My own groups, Landaya and
Donkilo! Afro Funk Orkestra feature the tambin heavily.
In West Africa, the tambin is normally constructed out of a
thick, woody vine that grows along the banks of parts of the Niger River. The
vine has sturdy outer walls and is entirely hollow, making it the perfect
material for a flute. I have also seen tambin flutes in West Africa constructed
out of metal pipe and pvc tubing, and these flutes sound remarkably similar to
the wooden flutes (and in fact it is nearly impossible to tell the difference
based on sound, especially given the great variety of “voices” that can be
created due to the natural variances of the wooden vine itself).
A transverse (or side blown) flute, the tambin consists of
only three holes, but has a range of two and a half octaves, achieved by
overblowing, and has four distinct “registers”. The embouchure is formed out of
a special substance knows as bee cerumin (a natural blend of beeswax and
propolis made by tiny, stingless bees) that is a black color and can be easily
shaped to help direct the passage of air into the hole. The cerumin, sticky
when heated, dries to a hard consistency (due to the high level of propolis);
that said, when playing the tambin for long durations on hot summer days, the
embouchure can soften somewhat, so care must be taken!
tuning and sound aesthetics
Traditionally, the tambin is tuned to what would be called
an equidistant heptatonic scale – that is, a seven note scale where all
intervals are roughly equal. I say roughly because the tuning depends on the
ear of the flute maker, who, without modern tuning devices, creates the flutes
to produce the traditional songs and melodies of his particular region;
variances from region to region in how these musical intervals are heard can
certainly be found. The equidistant scale is an ancient scale indeed, and while
it is tempting for the Western musician to characterize this scale as being
“out of tune”, it is important to note that this tuning is quite deliberate and
actually quite precise: the traditional songs of the Fulani and Malinké played
with a Western scale would not be the same songs at all.*
The tambin flutes are most commonly found in the keys of A♭,
G and F♯ (G♭) (approximately, because of
the equidistant nature of the scales). Since the flute is often played with the
balafon, the two “sizes” of flutes are relevant to whether you are playing
music with a large balafon or a smaller balafon, which would also be tuned
accordingly (many other turnings for the balafon exist and I don’t mean to
generalize here; I’m speaking specifically of Malinké instruments that would be
found in the Kouroussa region of Guinea). Further, I have seen two models of
the Ab flute: a smaller one beginning on the pitch of C, and a slightly larger
one beginning on Bb. While they play the same scale (just shifting the range),
the determination of which starting note is used is likely decided by the size
of the vine itself. While I haven’t encountered flutes tuned otherwise in this
region of Guinea, I have met other players, from Burkina Faso, for example, who
also have a larger flute tuned to F (and starting on the pitch of A) that is
quite beautiful.
[…]
About our name [Kassa Flute Company]
“Kassa is a Malinké word that means granary. It
is also the name for a family of rhythms and songs from the Malinké tradition
that are used for work rhythms – both to accompany the workers in the field as
well as to celebrate the fruits of their collective labor. The Kassa Flute Co.
name signifies to us that if one works hard, anything is possible!
Othar Turner's Rising Star Fife & Drum band (Turner, fife; G.D. Young, bass drum; E.P. Burton, snare; Eddie Ware, snare) playing a picnic at Othar's farm. Shot by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, August 1978. For more information about the American Patchwork filmwork, Alan Lomax, and his collections, visit http://culturalequity.org . [02.08.10]
**** Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series about African American fife and drum music. Part II of this pancocojams series showcases a video of Othar Turner & the rising star fife and drum band.
This post also presents YouTube comments from several discussion threads about the similariries of African American fife and drum music and certain traditional African music and other traditional music.
Thanks to Othar Turner and the musicians in his band and thanks to other African American fife and drum musicians for their musical legacies. Thanks to all those who are associated with these YouTube examples and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these examples on YouTube.
**** SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT THIS SUBJECT The YouTube discussion threads that these comments come from are given in no particular order. Those discussion threads and those sources are numbered for referencing purposes only. Discussion thread #1 Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band - Shimmy She Wobble (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDar1ymGbjg&t=32s&ab_channel=SamCollins
1. rachel king, 2012 "God bless the first enslaved Irishman for giving the first
enslaved blackman a wooden fyffe in
Mississippi"
** Reply 2. Tize, 2012 "Why in the world should we African-Americans give thanks to
an Irish or any european for preserving the African meloismatic and rhythmatic
musical culture of our African ancestors?"
** 3. Tize, 2012 "For
anybody that thinks this music comes from anywhere in Europe, I suggest you go
look up Fulani Flute and drum music, a genre played in West Africa. This is an
extension of the music of our(African-Americans)" ancestors."
** 4. Tize, 2012 "This is false. The physical construction of the blues fife
played in Northern MS is based on an old African model brought over by the
transatlantic slave trade. In fact the construction process mimics that of the
of Fula, a West African instrument not any Irish tool brought by indentured
servants.
Got to love these crazy eurocentric revisionist
theories about *AFRICAN*-american culture.........." -snip- "Ms" = "Mississippi"
** Reply 5. 黑佛, 2013 "I wouldn't have thought the origin of this song to be
African American. This was a unkown piece of my culture. I will look up Fulani
flute and drum music, thank you."
** 6. Ornella Friggit, 2014 "This reminds me a lot of Gurunsi music (from the south of
Burkina Faso/north of Ghana)."
** 7. Jack Moralee, 2013 "I personally feel this song in-particular show's a strong relationship with black Americans & Irish people during the 19th century & backwards."
** Reply 8. Tize, 2013 "This aside from the use of some western instruments, this music is primarily derived from West African fulani flute and drum music, basically an offshoot, it came from the Lower Chattahoochee Valley(Georgia/Alabama) to Mississippi probably some time during the domestic slave trade.
Fusions between African and Celtic/Anglo music can be heard in the Appalachian mountains hillbilly/bluegrass/country music."
** 9. Jamesmartens55, 2013 "one could say the same about Rhodesia....
gotta love these afrocentric revisionist theories about EUROPEAN-African culture...."
** Reply 10. Tize, 2013 "What does Zimbabwe have to do with the fact that the Northern Mississippi fife & drum blues tradition is a descendant from the Fife and Drum blues in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley, which itself is a descendant from the Fulani Flute and Drum tradition of West Africa, and the blues fife used is based on the folk construction of the Fula-Flute, a West African instrument?
Just message me, and I send you scholarly researched, peer-reviewed, sources to back it up."
** Reply 11. Shane Morris Music, 2019 "I'm curious what leads you to believe that N. Mississippi fife & drum blues is a descendant of the Lower Chattahoochee Valley tradition? Is there research or documentation for this? I'm more inclined to think that it occurred independently, evolving on it's own after the Civil War, as also in TN and MO." -snip- "TN" = "Tennessee" "MO" = "Missouri"
** 12. G Mc, 2013 "OK, is this not a mix of majority African music with some
Celtic taste?"
** Reply 13. Sakhal Nakhash, 2018 "Yeah, more like a European military march."
** Reply 14. austin konrad, 2019 "[Gerard mc namara not at all my dearest friend..not at all]
[Yeah, more like a European military march.] (profanity deleted) king dingbats, this music is indistinguishable from Gurunsi
music."
** Reply 15. Sadat Salifu, 2020 "Austin
konrad I love this! I am Ghanaian and I know the flute sound is straight out of
northern Ghana!"
** 16. saprissa9, 2019 "Holy crap it's actually made by black folks? When I first
heard it in the movie I really thought it was an Irish song." -snip- The movie that is referenced in this comment (and throughout that discussion thread is "Gangs Of New York". Othat Turner & the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band's recording of Shimmy She Wobble" was part of that movie's opening sequence.
**
Reply 17. Judy Jacobs, 2020 "Yes, there's a long tradition of ballads of many kinds in
the South. Many of the early settlers had Scots-Irish roots, and the slaves
they kept there learned the songs from those sources. Many of the songs sung
and played by both black and white folks originated in collections such as the
child Ballads. Otha used to host big community parties during which he'd
butcher a goat and cook it in a big iron pot. The band was usually made up of
his family members. Cool beans, right?"
[This is the video that is embedded in this pancocojams post.]
1. Gil Duarte Mokōî Ygarussu, 2013 "Very nice! The Otha, remember this bands of pifano in
Brazil!!!
Banda de Pífano"
** 2. B0bChorba. 2018 "This is 'Fife & Drum' music, early 19th century
music, of course mixing African and white.
A beautiful mix that has been done for thousands of years folks.
You can hear Euro/British/Irish recreated & played well
in the CD 'Marching Out of Time' by The
Fife & Drums of Colonial Williamsburg.
Welsh folk tunes, Purcell, well researched.
Could be heard in the Caribbean too. Folkways released a CD sounding very
good: 'Bongo, Backra, & Coolie, Vol.
2', recorded Jamaica 1975.
There was a fair bit recorded of this stuff in America, if
you dig deep, North MS mostly.
Multi-instrumentalist Sid Hemphill, Napoleon Strickland, also
compilation 'Traveling through the Jungle'.
There were also
singers from the Georgia Sea Islands, where proper 18/19th century African
roots could be heard sung most strongly, recorded in session with cane pipe and
drum players from inland, Ed Young & Georgia Sea Island
Singers."
** Reply 3. B0bChorba, 2018 "BTW This CD is definitely worth the money:
'From Ear to Ear, the Passage of African Music through
American Slavery', again by Colonial Williamsburg. Recreated, but done with much thought (and I
suspect loads of research), as well as feeling."
** 4. Cvp1969, 2018 "This is straight from Africa.."
** Reply 5. Benji, 2019 "This is American"
** Reply 6. Goo Gel, 2019 "Yes, but the connection to Africa is clear. Listen to any of
Othar's music with the Afrossippi Allstars and you can hear Senegalese musical
instruments. Drum(+wind instrument) music is also at the core of much Ghanaian
and other African countries' traditional music."
** Reply 7. Mississippi Delta Medicine, 2020 "Native flute and drums. Mizi-Ziibi. Black
Indigenous Americans. 🏹🏹🏹"
** 8. Joel Z. Williams, 2018 "This is the most pure, authentic folk music that I have ever discovered in the course of 40 years of searching for a clear link between the West African Fife and Drum traditional music and the Gheechee"
** Reply 9. Eric, 2018 "Irish Funk"
** Reply 10. One Earth one People one Race, 2020 "This is Igbo drum and flute from South Eastern Nigeria"
** Reply 12. Bluesmusic Andwhatnot, 2021 "These guys aren't "Gheechee" and there was likely
no "fife and drum traditional music" in West Africa at the time of
the slave trade, although there was likely a barrage of music that combined
wind instrument and drum/other percussion, with some of those traditions
surviving today. It's debatable if they had any direct influence on this
tradition however, even though the rhythm and intonation is strongly influenced
by West African music in a broad sense. Given that, this isn't "Igbo drum
and flute" either. It's a particular African American tradition that could
have been influenced by numerous West African sources, but is also pretty
clearly influenced by European fife and drum tradition (With them playing
snares and basses with western drum sticks while "marching" in a
straight line).
It's more likely that this particular instance of combining
percussion with flute was more directly influenced by European fife and drum,
rather than anything in Africa, with the music itself being the thing that's
distinctly African in it's origin. It's important to remember that the Africa
today is a very different Africa from the one 400-200 years ago and that,
overwhelmingly, African slaves were in a completely different cultural environment
once they reached the Americas, with many different people taken from many
different regions and ethnic groups finding themselves among each other. No
particular tradition or set of customs survived, especially in North America.
The traditions that did survive would have been common to a sleuth of different
ethnic groups in Africa, and would have lost any individual meaning in the
Americas and instead took on an entirely new, somewhat homogeneous one
reflective of the distinctly American life and environment of the enslaved.
This is all to say, while many African elements permeated and continue to
permeate through out African American culture and especially music, it's near
impossible to definitively trace the origin point of these elements back to anything
in particular in Africa. -snip- I reformatted this comment to increase its readability.
** 13. Cathair Patrick, 2018 "That sounds really like African music. Really raw stuff."
** 14. Sandro Caje, 2020 "It´s wonderful! To me is a very impressive surprise that
this culture survive in USA. With your permission, I want to show how this
tradition is mantained in Brazilian Northeast. In my country, I believe that
this music is the meeting of the indian flutes with african drums. I would like
to know more about the history of this musical expression in USA. Here I send a
link to a chapter of a documentary film made about "pifes" in Brazil.
The great composer and musician Hermeto Paschoal played fife in fairs, with his
brothers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RvI0trPVU "
** 15. adalberto aparicio, 2021 "Thanks for posting
.They sound like an entire Samba band from Brazil!!!I Feeling souful and magical while
watching this ,best wishes to
all."
"This is archival (?which) footage of a fife and drum group
of Ed and Lonnie Young of Mississippi. I
believe it was recorded by Alan Lomax, sometime between 1959 and the early
60s. They use a fife made of cane, and
drums adapted from military bands.
It is interesting how similar it is, not just in form but
also in actual content, to the fife and drum playing of "John Canoe"
processional music of Jamaica. I have
put just a quick sample of that from a 1954 recording, at the end.
[My purpose for posting is to draw out this comparison,
which would probably not be noticed otherwise (the clip being buried in Martin
Scorcese's documentary on Blues), but if it appears to infringe someone's
copyright, please contact me.]
EDIT: "This footage was shot during the 1966 Newport
Folk Festival, indeed by Alan Lomax. Ed Young plays the fife; Lonnie Young,
Sr., the snare; and G.D. Young, the bass drum. Lomax's audio recordings from
Newport '66, including those of the Youngs, are available through the online
archive of the Association for Cultural Equity (Alan Lomax Archive)." "
1. Wally Gator, 2009 "Now THAT is roots right from Africa baby. Birth of Rock."
** 3. guy br, 2011 "if you search for "Banda de Pífanos" from Brazil,
you will find somenthing similar."
Great video!
** 4. MissLindo Sindane, 2013 "Im from South Africa and they still make music like this"
** Reply 5. João Weimar, 2020 "If I didn’t know the source, I could say this sound was made
in Brazilian northeast, this is crazy. Much respect for African heritage."
** 6. Tize, 2013 "Have you ever checked out Fulani flute and drum music of
Upper West Africa? It's been studied that the blues fife mimics the
construction of the Fula flute. Many Fulani were brought to North America."
** 7. m adera, 2019 "You can witness West Africa in this, it's funny how these
people never lost their connection to Mother Earth even years later., beautiful"
** 8. Serero Serera, 2020 "My people in Burkina Faso play the very same
melodies and drums up to this day. I was literally in tears watching this."
** 9. MrOnyxRock, 2020 "WOW! I am clearly
late to this party. I thought this style
of fife & drum music was a Caribbean thing alone. I need to learn about this in America."
** 10. YISSAYAH KONGO Reings Over Yissolele, 2020 "I see myself dancing to this African dance"
**** This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series.
