,

AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS

No. 8. FanteeAir
Allegro

^1 1 n I - - I I _ I Ft J I f«, ~rr

No. 9. A Fantee Dirge

(Drums, Gosgs, etc.)

Specimens of African Music disclosing Elements Found in the

Songs of the Negro Slaves in America.
No. 1. A drum call from West Africa, utilized by Coleridge -Taylor in "Twenty- four Negro
Melodies transcribed for the Piano" (Boston, Oliver Ditson Co.). The specimen exhibits the
rhjrthraical "snap" or "catch", an exaggerated use of which has produced "rag-time"; also
the.
fact that African drums are sometimes tuned.- No. 2. The tones given out by a zanze of
the Zulus in the posession of the author; shows the pentatonic scale with two notes strange
to the system at the end.- No. 3. A pentatonic melody from"Les Chants et les
Contesdes Ba^
Ronga'/ by Henri Junod, utilized by Coleridge -Taylor, who remarked of it tbatit
was "cer.
tainly not unworthy of any composer- from Beethoven downwards'.' -.No. 4. A
melody of the
Hottentots, quoted by Engel in his "Introduction to the Study of National Music".
It is in
the major mode with the fourth of the scale omitted. The all-pervasive
"snap" is present,a9
It is in- No. 5. A Kaffir melody, also quoted by Engel; in the
major mode (D) without the
leading-tone.- No. 6. Music of a dance of the Dahomans heard at-the Columbiad
ExUbifioa
in Chicago in 189S, illustrating the employment of the flat seventh
and cross- rhythms be.
tween singers ami drummers.- No. 7. According to Bbwdich("Mission
from Cape Coast Cas-
tle to .Ashantee',' London, 1819), the oldest air in
his coUection. Bowdich says:"l could trace
it through four generations, but the answer made to
my enquiries will give the best idea of its
antiquity: 'It was made when the country was made'. " It was
played on the santo, a-rtade gui-
tar. It demonstrates the use of thirds.- No.S. A
Fantee air from Bowdich's"Mission,6ttf.-, show-
ing thirds, fifths and the«snap'.'- No.9. A Fantee dirge
for flutes and instruments of percus-
sion. Also from Bowdich, who says: "In venturing the
intervening and concluding bass.chord,
I merely attempt to describe the castanets,
gong.gongs, drums, etc., bursting in after tte
soft and mellow tones of the flutes; as ttthe ear wasaot
to retain a vibration of theswee»
or melody

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