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Artistic Technique

Call and Response

Musical Composition and Performance Techniques

Call and response is a musical performance technique structured as a dialogue between a leader, a leading voice or instrument, and a group, a responding voice or instrument, in which the group answers or echoes a phrase stated by the leader, the two alternating in a fixed, often repeating pattern. Rooted in West African musical and communal traditions and carried into the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade, call and response became a foundational structural technique in African American musical forms including work songs, spirituals, blues, gospel, and jazz, and it remains widely used across gospel, popular, and folk music performance, as well as in the traditional music of many other cultures worldwide.

Connections

Associated With

Aretha Franklin, Artists

Aretha Franklin drew on the call and response tradition rooted in gospel music.

Blues, Art Forms
Louis Armstrong, Artists

Louis Armstrong used call and response phrasing rooted in early jazz and blues tradition.

Music, Art Forms

call and response is a technique of the music art form.

Ostinato, Artistic Techniques

Call and response phrasing often functions alongside repeating ostinato patterns in African-derived musical traditions.

Sources
Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationCall and Response, Wikipedia summary lead
Quote, Call and Response, Wikipedia summary lead
Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners, for example in protest gatherings and marches where calls such as "what do we want?" and "when do we want it?" form a vehicle for promoting the issue underlying the protest.
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