Characteristics of Songs and poems

1. They employ repetition—songs would have a refrain or chorus to emphasize the mood and create rhythm.
2. They have direct address of the audience for immediacy of expression.
3. They carry direct translation of original language for local flavour or authenticity.
4. rhetorical questions to involve the audience and provoke them to think about issues the songs raise.
5. Songs are populated by idiophones and onomatopoeia to echo local sounds and make them interesting.
6. Songs are full of exaggerations or hyperbole to create comic or satirical effects.
7. Songs carry striking imagery, like metaphors and similes to create mental images in the mind of the audience.
8. Songs have call and response mode. Many songs are sung in a way that the soloist call and the choir or group respond, or one person calls and another responds.
9. Many songs are elastic and flexible; which means they can be stretched during performance to accommodate the time given or shortened on demand. Some songs can be modified to suit desparate situations like the famous Mwana wa mbeli song.
10. Some songs depend on the tone and texture of the voice of the performer to establish mood and even meaning. The same song can be sad and at another context happy or even spiritual depending on how it is sung and on tone.

Performance of songs and poems.

Various aspects are employed in the performance of songs and poems that make it interesting.

1.Mimicry

The narrator imitates the action and speech manners of the characters.

2. Improvisation

This is the ability of the narrator to incorporate in his narration, objects on sight, people and other things and involve them in the narration by pointing at them, inviting some on stage or putting available objects in use as musical instruments.

3. Facial Expression

They involve moment of face muscles to show contortion, frowning, grimacing, smiling, sneering and flinching. Facial expressions mainly show appropriate emotions at different stages of narration.

4. Tonal Variation or Intonation

This is the use of a rising and falling pitch in the voice of the narrator appropriately, when asking questions, making statements and for other dramatic purposes.

5. Pace of delivery

This is how fast the narrator speaks while narrating the story. The pace of delivery can vary depending on the nature of the story and the emotions to be impacted in the audience. For instance, to make the audience sad a slow torturous pace is appropriate.

6. Onomatopoeia and idiophones   

Onomatopoeia is use of English words in a story that imitates sounds. Words like scratch, screech, whisper, hiss etc. are English words that imitate sound and if used in a story would constitute onomatopoeia. The effectiveness of Onomatopoeia is to create the originality of events. Idiophones involve use of local or non-English words to imitate sounds in a story. Words such as Puff! Ndo ndo ndo, or Chubwi can be used to capture the sounds heard by a character in the story and would constitute use of idiophones as a style.

7. Body Movements and gestures

To show the movement of characters in terms of leaning, running, walking, jumping and sitting as they dramatize the song

8. Accompanying instruments and costumes

Costumes can be used to make the narration more colourful and entertaining, while accompanying instruments like drums, arrows, placards etc help dramatize and mimic events in a story.

9. Dance

It is important to cultural dances in the narrative, that is, by use of songs to break the monotony of narration.

10. Dramatic Pauses

Pausing dramatically can be useful to let the point sink, draw attention to a major development in a story, create suspense or invite a reaction from the audience or applause.

11' Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions are used to provoke the audience to think critically about something.

12. Repetition

Repetition of some words or segments to emphasis certain points or drum in more entertainment.