African American Music Essay

African American music could not possibly be explained in six pages however the emotion behind their vocal and instrumental originalities can. African American music has more emotion and deeply rooted ancestry than most if not all music in history. Their music has rich culture and the pain, sorrow, or joy can be heard in their music. Music has created entertainment, jobs, and history for people throughout the ages. African American music has a history unlike any other that sets it apart from the rest of the world’s music. This paper with describe a brief history of the American Americans and show why emotion is a crucial part of their music.
African music obviously began in Africa where music was strongly rooted to everyday life among the African natives. The rich texture of their music and descriptive chants gave way to oral tradition in a nontraditional sense. In the days of little to no written language, oral tradition was a must for the African history to survive. In their music a story, or ballad, would take place to describe something such as a struggle between a hunter and a beast. These songs were easy for everyone to learn and chant to the next generation.
Oral tradition may have been the sole root as to why Africans would sing the way they did, however, there were many other deeply rooted aspects of their music culture. For one, music was a way of praising their God or Gods. A ballad may be describing a struggle between gods, or how grateful they were to their rain god for this year’s harvest. “Why?” may elude to some confusing unanswered questions, but the Africans had many centuries to change and morph their music to give its’ defined features that are so much different from today’s music.
Besides the African’s voc...

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...centuries. From Africa to America, blacks gave feeling and meaning to music that America would be otherwise missing a key component without. Today American music cannot be pronounced as one style of music, rather a great mixture of music. All of these culturally rooted styles of music can historically pinpoint African American influence from one, two, or more genres of musical history. The history of African American music could not be explained better than Charlie “Bird” Parker stated it “Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.” African Americans had their own experiences, expectancies, lifestyles, and perspectives that gave them the powerful emotion and improvisation unlike any artists before them.