How did improvisation come from slavery?

Answer 1

Among the defining features of African American music are the mix of cultural influences from African to European, the presence of bothsyncopation and improvisation, and the pull between city and country, spiritual and secular. These characteristics eventually led black Americans to create what is widely believed to be America's greatest cultural achievement: jazz.

When Africans first arrived in America in 1619, they brought with them only memories. Among those memories, the drumming, singing, and dancing of their West African homes. Although music was often forbidden to the slaves, they sometimes found ways of using it to communicate, as well as to commemorate occasions, especially deaths. Work songs and sorrow songs, or spirituals, were the first music to grow out of the African experience in America. These songs were often performed a cappella; when instruments were used, they were largely fiddles and banjos.

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AnswerMusic was improvised even in the Baroque period during the times of Bach when musicians used figured bass which was similar to jazz musicians improvising over chord changes. It wasn't until the classical period that composers like Mozart started insisting that musicians play the music note for note as written.

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