Before you read the author’s excellent aural description of “Lambango” and study the Active Listening guide, listen to it one more time and see how you would describe this song. Then compare what you have written to what the author has written and the Active Listening guide (maybe while listening to the song once more). Answers will vary

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• I hear a fairly structured rhythmic/tonal background in the kora ostinato and percussive tapping patterns. In the foreground I hear a male voice interjecting text that sounds close to—but not exactly like—everyday speech. More importantly, and also in the foreground, is a female voice rising over all the rest of the sound in a series of separated passages (phrases) which seem more determined by the words she is presenting ("free rhythms") than some pre-composed "tuneful" melody. In fact, her melodic range is limited to a rather small musical interval (maybe half an octave) which also makes her singing sound more like it's being spoken or chanted than "sung" in the Western sense.