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35have only six keys in a scale (C, D, E, F, G, A). Now, if we use the samesub-Saharan African principle of the distance between the keys (“skipthe next key” principle) in this new scale without “B”, on top of the “C”key we will have the same “E” key, but the lower harmony from thesame ”C” will be now different, because now there is no “B” in a scaleSo, the lower harmony for “C” now will be “G” (as there is no ”B”, wewill need to skip “A” key, as “A” is now the next from “C”). As a result,in this scale we will have not only thirds, but couple of fourths as well.If you now imagine that there are only five keys in a scale – omit twokeys from the set of seven white key between “C” and the next “C”(most likely the omitted keys will be “F” and “B”. Other versions arealso possible). We will have now the scale C, D, E, G. A. This is socalledpentatonic, or anhemitonic scale [“penta-tonic” means “fivetones”; and “anhemitonic scale” means a scale that does not have anyhalf between any of the keys. Name “pentatonic” is generally morepopular for this scale]. Many cultures of the world (including Chineseand Scottish) are mostly based on this (pentatonic) scale. Now, if we tryagain to put harmonies to a melody in this five-tone pentatonic scale(with the same principle “skip the next note”), we will soon find out thatwe will have the interval fourth almost all the time (there will be onlyone third – between the “C” and “E”). This scale is dominating, forexample, in Central African Republic, where polyphony mostly consistsof two parts. As if this is not enough, there are also scales with the lessthan five (four) keys in a scale as well. They are called “tetratonicscales”. In this scale you would have fourths and fifths in the harmonies,and in this scale number of parts do not exceed two.Of course, as every generalization, this characteristic of African polyphonic musicby no means covers all the diversity of polyphonic forms in African music. For example,there are singing traditions where the verbal text is not used at all (or used only asnonsense-syllables). This frees the melodic movement of different parts, so no parallelmovement of parts is necessary. For example, this is the case with the wonderfullydeveloped tradition of yodeling in some African musical cultures (yodels are always freeof meaningful verbal text). The abovementioned characteristic of African polyphony(based on parallel movement of parts and using vertical harmonies by “skipping the nextnote”) will serve only as a rough guide as the main (or the most widely distributed) formof sub-Saharan African vocal polyphony.Another very important feature of sub-Saharan African vocal music is the crucialrole of responsorial singing – based on the alternation of the leader’s call and the groupresponse. Responsorial singing is so widespread and so well documented in all regions ofAfrica (and in fact in the whole world) that I do not feel the need to provide any prove forthe crucial importance of this phenomenon in sub-Saharan Africa.Another uniting feature of sub-Saharan African cultures could be the live interestof native African populations towards the European choral (polyphonic) music. Althoughthe original Christian hymns were very often changed according to the local traditions, ithas been frequently noted in musicological literature that the work of Christian