Analyzing Ground Zero Performance in Los Angeles - Essay Example

The song that was played is known as Ogallo Nyakalaga. This is from the composition of Suzzana Owiyo who was also the main artist performing the song. It was the first time that the song was being performed and so many people who anxious to know how it would come out since she had talked a lot about it. This was an Afro-fusion song that combined the native Luo songs and instruments and tried to modernize it. Most of the attendees were also from the Luo tribe. The song was written in Native language and so it was hard for me to understand what she was saying but I could tell from the crowd what was going on. The song was also accompanied by the local afro-fusion dance which is a soft simple dance that involves the ladies dancing with the men but no contact is allowed.

Afro-fusion music fuses traditional African music with modern music. It tries to make African music modern through the use of modern instruments that were not used before and also through the use of modern dance and words. However, most of the other styles of the song remain traditional with differences only coming at some points of the play.

Another song that was played is known as Ndoa. The song was from Anayo a local Kenyan musician. The song was a mixed gospel with the Lingala genre of music. The composition was from Anayo and the song involves vigorous dances with the dancers jumping up and down sweating. It has a song that was supposed to make the crowd in the party mood and make them feel that they were partying.  One characteristic feature of this song is that it is fast and the beats are heard more than the words which were in Swahili.

The other song that was played is known as Kisumu City. This song was played to praise the city of Kisumu. The song also had fast beats which were accompanied by the beats from the drum which was supposed to make the audience dance to them. The dancing was also kind of rough with some men going to the extent of lifting the ladies.

The guitar was used as an accompaniment in the concert. The guitarist used the technique of going high when the beats were low and sometimes going so low when the beats were high. This created a presence of the guitar in the crowd and made someone notice its presence. The guitar was also used to start the song and every song began with the guitar being played for almost 5 minutes before the other beats were introduced. The high point in my opinion in the performance was when the drums were used to add to the beats of the keyboard. This is when the beats were so high and the crowd also showed by the way that they danced. This was accompanied by low guitar plays and high verbal plays.

The performance was good with the mixing of all necessary elements of music that made the night enjoyable.  Most of the people who attended the concert looked certified and only a few people left the place before the end of the time showing that they liked the performance. The audience also had lots of reactions to the performance by shouting whenever a performance was at its peak and also dancing to the beats of the song with the other dancers and performers. The audience sometimes sang the songs to go with how the performers were singing so that it looked like they already knew the songs.

The order of the song was well planned. It started with slow smooth songs with very soft dances but as time went on, the pace of the beats increased and the songs also increased in motion. Fast music was introduced at around midnight to match the audience. Who was already in the dancing mood? After this, the soft slow songs came back to finalize the event, and most people left with the slow songs going on.

I selected the three songs because of their rhythm which was almost the same and because they had almost the same theme of the concert which was to promote African culture. The texture of the music was also soft showing the nature of most African cultures which was being demonstrated here (Cooke, 23). The three musicians also had the same form of music that they used; this is because they had almost the same composers coming from the same geographical regions. The tonality of the first music was however different from the other two due to its strange anchor which made it ideal for the event.

In conclusion, I would love to say that the event was well performed and that the instruments and the music blended in together to produce a unique type of music that everybody had come to enjoy. The 6 elements of music were used in the selection of the type of music to be played in the event.