Ewe music
Ewe music is the music of the Ewe people. Its highest form is in dance music including a drum orchestra, but there are also work, play, and other songs. It is featured in metrical build of songs.
- Nearly all rhythms which are used in combination are made from simple aggregates of a basic time-unit. A quaver is always a quaver.
- The claps or other time-background impart no accent what-ever to the song.
- African [Ewe] melodies are additive: their time-background is divisive.
- The principle of cross-rhythms.
- The rests within and at the end of a song before repeats are an integral part of it.
- Repeats are an integral part of the song: they result in many variations of the call and response form (see summary).
- The call and response type of song is usual in Africa [sic].
- African [Ewe] melodies are diatonic: the major exception being the sequence dominant-sharpened subdominant-dominant.
- Short triplets are occasionally used.
- The teleological trend: many African [Ewe] songs lean towards the ends of the lines: it is at the ends where they are likely to coincide with their time-background.
- Absence of the
Drums
Master drum: Atsimewu
Asiwui: Sogo, Kidi, Kagaŋ.
Claps and song
Voice and hands.