Ghana Make Some Music! Trivia Quiz

Answer: piccolo

The gyil is a kind of xylophone common to Gur-speaking populations of Ghana, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast. In fact, it's the main instrument of the Dagara people of northern Ghana, who play it during funerals. Usually accompanying the gyil is a gourd drum called a kuor.

Found throughout West Africa, the talking drum, or donno in Dagbani and other Gur languages of northern Ghana, is an hourglass-shaped instrument whose pitch can vary to mimic human speech. The drummer merely squeezes the drum between his arm and ribcage as he beats with a stick. In the Akan language of southern Ghana, it is called the odondo.

The piccolo is a European flute-like instrument, from the Italian for "small", very prominent in John Philip Souse's "The Stars and Stripes Forever".

Answer: melisma

Melisma is the opposite of syllabic singing, where each syllable of text gets one note. In Western music, melismatic singing is found in Gregorian chant and in Jewish chanting of the Torah. Pop singers often improvise a melisma over a simple melody (referred to as a "run").

Most northern Ghanaian music is also set to a minor pentatonic (five-toned) scale.

Answer: polyrhythm

Musicologist Alan P. Merriam identified the Niger-Congo region where African cross-rhythm is most prevalent, and Ghana is right in the middle of that! One way this is done is that the musician at the gyil, an African xylophone, will play two beats with the left hand whilst the right hand plays three cross-beats. This 3:2 ratio is the foundation of most traditional music of coastal Ghana (and indeed much of West Africa). When listening to West African cross-rhythm, European ears often misperceive the secondary rhythm as the primary rhythm because of where the accents are placed.

Answer: social worker

You may think of a griot as a West African bard or troubadour. He is a combination storyteller, poet, historian, musician, and praise-singer. In the past he might also have been an adviser to a chieftain or king. A sharp wit, encyclopedic knowledge of local history, and perfect reproduction of traditional melodies were required of the griot.

He also would compose songs on the spot of current events and gossip. The genre is not what what it once was, but there are still griots in West Africa, including Atongo Zimba of Ghana, who tours Europe and South America as well as Africa.

Answer: True

Among the Ewe of southeastern Ghana, choruses sing Gogodzi, rather melancholic tunes sung a cappella or with sparse drum accompaniment. On the second day of the funeral, however, the focus changes on strengthening community ties. The Ewe might even sing the Yazo, which is a song of flirtation performed by unwed young men and women.

Answer: electric synthesizers

There was a slight split between dance orchestras for the elite and more heavily guitar-based bands for ordinary folks, especially by the 1950s. Nonetheless, generally jazzy horns of Big Band, lots of guitars, and ashiko drums were the mainstays particularly from the 1920s until Independence in 1957. Highlife became popular throughout much of West Africa, including Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and particularly in English-speaking countries like Liberia.

An ashiko drum is a cone-shaped wooden drum played with bare hands. Developed by the Yoruba of Nigeria, the ashiko drum has three tones: bass, tone, and slap.

Answer: Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana is Mexican-American; all the rest of the visiting stars at the concert were African-American. The Soul to Soul concert was the suggestion of U.S. poet Maya Angelou, who had briefly lived in Ghana. It had both American music and African music, and in some cases Ghanaian musicians got to play along with the American artists. The concert encouraged more importation of American music, but it also ended up creating a roots revival in traditional forms.

Overall, in the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. pop music and American reggae dominated Ghana, aside from a roots movement. American-style Gospel music also gave the other styles some competition in the 1980s.

Answer: Germany

George Darko coined the term "Burgher-highlife" in his song "Akoo Te Brofo". There has developed an enormous Ghanaian-German community since the 1970s and especially in the 1980s. In fact, the Ghanaian diaspora is the largest migrant group from sub-Saharan Africa in Germany. Around this time, Ghanaian communities arose as well in Toronto and other cities in Canada.

Answer: highlife and hip-hop

Ghanaian hip-hop germinated in the 1980s with such performers as Gyedu Blay Ambolley, considered the father of rap by Ghanaians. An underground hip-hop collective, heavily influenced by American music, thrived in Accra, the capital. By the 1990s, Jeff Tennyson Quaye (Jay-Q) had pioneered hiplife, the fusion of highlife and hip-hop.

It makes sense that an African nation should adopt hip-hop, an African-American phenomenon. In the words of Pangie Anno, who runs Ghana's oldest music studio: "This is an African tradition which is thousands of years old.... You can say American hip-hop is an evolution of an African tradition."

Answer: True

A critical component of hiplife is computer-aided composition, which necessitates creation in a studio environment. When hiplife is presented before an audience, performers generally speak or sing into a microphone over pre-recorded music. World Music promoters generally have shunned the music as a result, favoring music from other African countries such as the Congo. Distribution through the Internet, however, has helped Ghanaian music spread worldwide on a more underground or casual basis, and some Ghanaian hiplife artists have toured the Americas as well, to bring Ghana's contribution to music across the seas.