Reuters - American singer Pink has toppled Kings of Leon from the peak of the British pop charts with her single “So What,” the Official UK Charts Company said on Sunday.
AP - Miley Cyrus’ 16th birthday party was more boisterous than sweet. Cyrus celebrated the hallmark birthday at an over-the-top Disneyland celebration Sunday even though she doesn’t actually turn 16 until Nov. 23. The theme park was closed for the supersized soiree, which included a four-song performance by the teen queen and a fireworks display above Sleeping Beauty Castle and 16 giant inflatable candles.
AP - Translucent images of long ago, of black men and women, backs bent, picking cotton under an unforgiving sun, are artistically displayed on standing glass panels in a museum carved out of an old brick gin mill in the Mississippi Delta.
AP - In a show defined by throbbing dance music, tight choreography, spectacular stage sets and stunning visuals, perhaps the most stirring moment during the kickoff concert to Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet” tour came when the Material Girl stood onstage with just her guitar and a few musicians for an acoustic set.
AP - “Lucia” lovers are in luck at the Metropolitan Opera these days.
AP - Some of Britain’s biggest music stars announced Saturday they are banding together to demand greater control over their music in the digital age.
AP - Placido Domingo’s concert at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza on Saturday night is being billed as “the world’s greatest tenor at one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World,” a claim few lovers of opera or history would dispute.
Reuters - Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, launched its free music package on Thursday, issuing a challenge to Apple Inc’s dominance of the digital music market.
An African woman, wearing native garments, performs during a visit from participants in the West Africa Training Cruise 1983.
Africa is a continent with a wide range of ethnic, cultural and lingustic diversity. A general description of African Music is not possible as there is no distinctly pan-African music, only shared forms of musical expression. Nevertheless, there are regional similarities between dissimilar groups, as well as popular trends known across the continent.Sub-Saharan music has as its distinguishing feature a rhythmic and complexity that has spread to other regions, especially to the Americas. Many Caribbean and Latin American music genres like rumba and salsa, as well as African American music were founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken there by African slaves
The remarkable aspect of African polyrhythm is the discernible coherence of the resultant rhythmic pattern. Pitch polyphony exists in the form of parallel intervals (generally thirds, fourths, and fifths), overlapping choral antiphony and solo-choral response, and occasional simultaneous independent melodies. In addition to voice, many wind and string instruments perform melodic functions. Common are bamboo flutes, ivory trumpets, and the one-string ground bow, which uses a hole in the ground as a resonator.
During colonial times, European instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, and guitars were adopted by many African musicians; their sounds were integrated into the traditional patterns. Scale systems vary between regions but are generally diatonic.
Music is highly functional in African ethnic life, accompanying birth, marriage, hunting, and even political activities. Much music exists solely for entertainment, ranging from narrative songs to highly stylized musical theater. Similarities with other cultures, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern, can be ascribed primarily to the Islamic invasion.
African folk music is mostly functional in nature. There are many different kinds of work songs, and ceremonial or religious music, but none of these are performed outside of their intended social context. Traditional African music is rhythmically complex, and are polyrhythmic. African musical instruments include a wide array of drums and other percussion instruments, including talking drums, slit gongs, rattles and water drums, as well as melodic instruments like fiddles, harps and the balafon, and lamellophones such as the mbira.
Hand drumming is significant throughout Africa
Genres of popular African Music include:
Afrobeat
Apala
Benga
Bikutsi
Highlife
Isicathamiya
Jùjú
Kwaito
Kwela
Makossa
Mbalax
Mbaqanga
Mbube
Morna
Palm-wine
Raï
Rumba
Soukous/Congo/Lingala
Taarab
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
Video: Kenya African Music
AP - As members of Doyle Lawson’s Quicksilver and Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder, Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent were fixtures at the International Bluegrass Music Association awards.
