World Music

India:

Tabla  - a pair of indian drums, they aren’t joined, they have a black dot in the middle of the skin, then the skin and around the edge is white tape, you can play in three different places and play them different ways. Its very complex and it’s the most distinctive percussion sound in indian music.

Tanbura (tanpura) the indian bass instrument, it has a very long neck it simply plays a drone, very boring,  it’s a constant sound

Sitar; the melody instrument , indian version of a guitar, played by plucking, there are two sets of strings the main strings you pluck and then the sympathetic strings vibrate in sympathy. You don’t usually play the strings unless you are professional. 

There is the indian scale or keys, Rags, ragas, some scales are only played in the morning , the sitar most of the time is improvising. The same word is also used to describe the piece itself, the Raga.

In this video we see the three mentioned instruments, it shows the Tabla, the Tanbura and the sitar, as you hear the sitar has a very unique sound. 

Indian flute: sounds like the flute, usually improvises bits of melody over the top, its wooden

Alap:  Raga is broken into different sections, an alap is a slow section of a raga

Gat; is a fast section of a raga

Bhangra is like indian pop, it’s a fusion of indian and western music,

African music:

All of the Instruments are made of wooden and natural materials

Djembe: Its a drum played in different ways to get different sound qualities, its held so sound can leave the bottom of the drum,

Dunun: is another type of drum

Polyrythm: a selection of different instruments and rythms to create a layered sound

African vocal music:

Chanting: everybody singing at the same time and singing the same thing

Call and response: Somebody sings a line then everybody answers with a different phrase/line