Concert Report

CONCERT REPORT #1  

Music 100   TTH 11:10-12:35 PM

WORLD MUSIC

I attended a concert called Prince Diabaté Acoustic Trio on Monday, September29 at 7:30 PM in the J. Dayton Smith Recital Hall of SDSU Music Building. This concert is about the traditional and modern Mandé music from Guinea, West Africa. The performers were Prince Diabaté, Ken Rosser, and Linda Albertano. The group was conducted by Prince Diabaté, who is a famous superb kora (West African harp) player, composed all the songs by himself, and also plays kamele n’goni & vocals.

Instruments:
At the beginning of the concert, Prince Diabaté came out and introduced himself and his music.
Then, they started to perform the music. The whole concert had about 5 songs. The song I chose to review was Djerelon, which means "remember your roots" in Malinke language, and was written by the performer. There were three different instruments playing through the music: kora, acoustic guitar, and bolon (traditional contrabass). Basically, the whole music was played throughout with the kora and acoustic guitar, but sometimes the bolon accompanied the other instruments and a vocal was sung by Prince Diabaté. The whole piece of music was entirely full of ethnically characteristic rhythms.

Sound:
The music was very lively, exotic, motivational, and rhythmic. It was in major key because the melody sounded very happy, and the phrases always ended on an upbeat tone. The volume level of the piece was pretty steady; it only changed in the middle and the end of the piece. The volume gradually changed from low to loud and also from loud to low.

Rhythm:
Kora and acoustic guitar played as a steady beat through the music. Basically, the whole piece was played pretty fast. They all played in simple quadruple meter. In addition, there was polyrhythm playing through the whole piece of music, such as three different rhythms playing in the middle.

Melody:
The melodies were wave-like, and in a medium-range. This... [continues]

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