The Role of Song in African Culture Essay Example
The Role of Song in African Culture Essay Example

The Role of Song in African Culture Essay Example

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  • Pages: 2 (437 words)
  • Published: May 5, 2022
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The transatlantic slave trade proved to be one of the most socially and psychologically challenging ordeal for the Africans captured and those left back at home due to the separation with their loved ones. Africans had deep cultural beliefs and practices; they had deep faith in their religion and cultural norms. Those who got captured so as to be transported as slaves to Europe faced a lot of psychological turmoil and physical torture as they were moved and harbored in deplorable conditions. Through musical indulgences, it helped them cope with the circumstances they underwent.

Music was a mode of worship to Africans, they could seek divine intervention and help from God through praises, humming and sometimes wailing. This gave them hope that God was listening to them and could eventually intervene in their suffering, by keeping their hopes alive, we f

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ind that they would eventually accept the conditions they were put under still hoping that events would turn out to be kinder. Music was also a way of cultural embarrassment, pride and identity, therefore through music they could identify themselves with their ancestors and retain their feeling of identity since their ancestors were apparently listening and guiding them. In the foreign land music still gave them identity and through worship believed that God would guide them through the alien land.

Music is generally defined as sounds that are produced vocally or through instrumental rhythms that are combined in a manner that produces a beauty of any form or in expressing an emotion. Personally, having been in unfamiliar, disappointing or disappointing situations that tend to reflect back to situations that have occurred previously in my life there are

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flashes of sounds that haphazardly. With deeper concentration I get to realize that the sounds are songs that my elder sister used to teach me back when I was young when I got upset. This helps me find my calm and figure out the situation in an organized manner or rather reduce my tension and later on become jovial or find a solution amidst the calmness.

For instance, I once was caught up in a class misconduct and was deeply afraid of my father’s reaction, I chose a song about stars that my sister taught me and by picturing the vast universe, the serenity and the starry colors I became calm and found the perfect explanation to the principal for my actions which got me just a warning. The music grows vague by day as I grow older, but it’s something I look forward to teaching my young ones because it still impacts equally as it always did.

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