Why Should I Learn African Music?
When most people think of Africa, they think about the rhythms and percussion that dominate the continent’s culture. They think of music that’s made for dancing. Irresistible music! Apart from the endless variety of dance music played in Africa itself, so many genres from the Americas that we know and love – funk, reggae, soul, ska, zouk, cumbia, merengue, son, samba, etc – all share an African origin.
The electric bass guitar, played the African way, combines the ancient bottom end of ceremonial percussive ensembles with the forceful vibrancy of today’s large guitar-led African orchestras.
Learn Online With Our Soukous Bass Guitar Course
My name’s Edd Bateman, and I’ve been playing bass professionally with African bands for over 20 years. Over the next 4 days, I’ll be sending you a combination of free daily African bass guitar lessons with videos, notation and soukous backing tracks.
Soukous is the Congo’s dominant popular dance music style. It has a powerful driving beat that underpins many of Africa’s popular national dance styles, such as sungura from Zimbabwe, and coupé décalé from Ivory Coast. Because of soukous’s wide appeal and crucial influence, it’s essential that every African bass enthusiast develops an proper understanding of this universal African rhythm.
Discover The Details With Sebene Bass Tutorials
Forget the classic verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-key change-chorus song structure of western pop music. In Africa, many styles of dance music involve just two parts: the vocal section and the dance section.
In Congolese music, the full-force dance section is known as the sebene. Expect to hear an instant shift in energy the moment it kicks in; with guitars taking off into deeply intricate high register melodies; the drummer shifting to beat out cavache or sebene rhythms with military precision on the snare; and up to five vocalists ditching melodic choruses and moving to short sharp rhythmic embellishments, known as atalaku, to fire up the crowd. Meanwhile, the bass, still in its supportive role, drives the music on with highly energetic thumb-lead lines that dynamically traverse all four strings, full of subtle passing phrases and intricacies.
Authoritative, engaging and genuinely fun, our online African Bass tutorials will open up a whole new musical world, and give you the key to mastering many great contemporary dance music styles.
