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Ewe music is the music of the Ewe people of Togo, Ghana, and Benin, West Africa. Instrumentation is primarily percussive and rhythmically the music features great metrical complexity. Its highest form is in dance music including a drum orchestra, but there are also work, play, and other songs. Ewe music is featured in A. M. Jones's ''Studies in African Music''. ==Characteristics== Jones describes two "rules" (p.24 and p.17, capitalization his): # The Unit of Time Rule or the Rule of Twos and Threes: "African () phrases are built up of the numbers 2 or 3, or their multiples: or of a combination of 2 and 3 or of the multiples of this combination. Thus a phrase of 10 will be (2 + 3) + (2 + 3) or (2 + 2 + 2) + 4. # The Rule of Repeats: "The repeats within an African () song are an integral part of it." If a song is formally "A + A + B + B + B" one cannot leave out, say, one of the B sections. He also lists the following "Features of African () Music" (p. 49): # "Songs appear to be in free rhythm but most of them have a fixed time-background. # The rule of 2 and 3 in the metrical build of songs. # Nearly all rhythms which are used in combination are made from simple aggregates of a basic time-unit. A quaver is always a quaver. # The claps or other time-background impart no accent what-ever to the song. # African () melodies are additive: their time-background is divisive. # The principle of cross-rhythms. # The rests within and at the end of a song before repeats are an integral part of it. # Repeats are an integral part of the song: they result in many variations of the call and response form (see summary). # The call and response type of song is usual in Africa (). # African () melodies are diatonic: the major exception being the sequence dominant-sharpened subdominant-dominant. # Short triplets are occasionally used. # The teleological trend: many African () songs lean towards the ''ends'' of the lines: it is at the ends where they are likely to coincide with their time-background. # Absence of the ''fermata''." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ewe music」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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