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Principles of Rhythm Integration in African Drumming
... An example of these inter-phrase rhythms in the use of the drum as song surrogate is shown in Figure 8, with the inter-phrase rhythms resulting in more drum onsets than syllabic onsets in the corresponding song sample. It appears that in some instances the drummer is simultaneously recreating the song sample phrases and playing a pacemaker rhythm to keep time (Anku 1997). ...
... The overall regularity and repetitive nature of most of the inter-phrase rhythms is suggestive of a time-keeping function. It may be that the ìyáàlù dùndún is simultaneously representing the song sample phrases and providing a pacemaker rhythm to keep time (Locke 1982;Anku 1997). Differences in performers regarding the use of inter-phrase rhythms results in differing effects on correlations when removing rhythmic embellishments. ...
... These inter-phrase rhythms helped to communicate a clear and consistent pulse through the addition of repetitive rhythms between sub-phrases or in the use of one-or two-timed attacks. Research on West African drumming consistently cites the importance of a steady beat, often established and maintained via the bell pattern, a recurrent timeline played by one or more instruments in a drum ensemble (Locke 1982;Anku 1997;Oludare 2016). The inter-phrase rhythms in the DS samples may serve a similar purpose, providing a pacemaker rhythm that keeps time underneath the song sample phrases that the drum is performing. ...
Yorùbá dùndún drumming is an oral tradition which allows for manipulation of gliding pitch contours in ways that correspond to the differentiation of the Yorùbá linguistic tone levels. This feature enables the drum to be employed as both a musical instrument and a speech surrogate. In this study, we examined four modes of the dùndún talking drum, compared them to vocal singing and talking in the Yorùbá language, and analyzed the extent of microstructural overlap between these categories, making this study one of the first to examine the vocal surrogacy of the drum in song. We compared the fundamental frequency, timing pattern, and intensity contour of syllables from the same sample phrase recorded in the various communicative forms and we correlated each vocalization style with each of the corresponding drumming modes. We analyzed 30 spoken and sung verbal utterances and their corresponding drum and song excerpts collected from three native Yorùbá speakers and three professional dùndún drummers in Nigeria. The findings confirm that the dùndún can very accurately mimic microstructural acoustic temporal, fundamental frequency, and intensity characteristics of Yorùbá vocalization when doing so directly, and that this acoustic match systematically decreases for the drumming modes in which more musical context is specified. Our findings acoustically verify the distinction between four drumming mode categories and confirm their acoustical match to corresponding verbal modes. Understanding how musical and speech aspects interconnect in the dùndún talking drum clarifies acoustical properties that overlap between vocal utterances (speech and song) and corresponding imitations on the drum and verifies the potential functionality of speech surrogacy communications systems.
... Nas críticas dirigidas aos modelos de análise musicológica usados por etnomusicólogos ou musicólogos para interpretar a percussão africana, Anku reconhece os trabalhos de David Locke (1982), John Chernoff (1979), A. M. Jones (1954) e James Koetting (1970) como relevantes ao desafio de criar um sistema de notação orientado na interpretação da perceção holística, que enfatizasse tanto os métodos descritivos quanto os analíticos. No entanto, Anku percebe que a exposição de todos estes académicos ao tema, demonstra a crescente consciência das complexidades da percussão africana, parcialmente devido à abordagem sistemática por eles adotada e devido à sua experiência prática com a música africana (ANKU, 1997). ...
... Este modelo de análise aqui proposto por Koetting, endossado por Wilie Anku (1997), e confirmado pelo próprio através da sua experiência como um nativo académico desde 1986 tem por objetivo sondar em pro- (12) To analyze the patterns of a drum ensemble piece individually is to miss the main characteristic of the music, which is the totality of sound produced by the interrelation of the various parts. This is particularly true in viewing the relation between the master drum and the rest of the ensemble. ...
... Não é, e nunca foi, minha pretensão expor aqui, o sistema proposto acima. Pela sua originalidade, me sinto atraído pelas inúmeras possibilidades que se abrem com relação ao design da pesquisa quanto às considerações formuladas no parágrafo anterior; pela sua complexidade (ver, JONES, 1954;KOETTING, 1970;NKETIA, 1974;CHERNOFF, 1979;KAUFMAN, 1980;LOCKE, 1982;AGAWU, 1987;ANKU, 1997), tenho a plena consciência que o escopo da dissertação nunca poderia ser tão ambicioso, a ponto de abarcar todos os aspetos de um modelo desta complexidade, por razões de várias naturezas. ...
KEYWORDS: Colá Son Jon, sociability, music, tamboreiros, Cabo Verde,
popular festivities.
This research is about the festivities of Colá Son Jon in the city of
Porto Novo, at the island of Santo Antão in Cabo Verde. One has proposed
to analyze, with special attention, the performance of the most
important musicians to the festivity, the tamboreiros, and their place in
this cultural manifestation trajectory, which, in turn, has been going
through significant transformations in these last decades. Fieldwork has
encompassed three steps. Two of them were carried out during the festivities
period, in the month of June in the years 2013 and 2014, and the
remaining one was carried out during December 2013 at the island of
Santo Antão, when one has tried to analyze the diverse forms of sociability
practiced by the residents of an outskirt neighborhood during the
mobilization that precedes, and remains until the end of the festivities.
The festivities of Colá Son Jon are deeply related to the island ancestor’s
ways of living through memory, the use of symbolic objects and the
living representations during this cycle.
The ethnomusicological approach comes into play in my work, in
order to comprehend the tamboreiros’ task from their perspective. In my
methodological procedure, I seek to value the practices and knowledge
that makes them legitimate as one of the main elements that constitute the
festivities of Colá Son Jon. In addition, the analytic decision of valuing
the functional approach of music, in order to value a unitary conception,
allows us to enter the various ways how we express ourselves rhythmically,
in a variety of rhythmic signification.
... Quando a percussão é feita na tchabeta ( gura 2) os padrões rítmicos, os quais são percebidos ciclicamente, se tornam mais complexos. Segundo Anku (1997), o sucesso de uma performance pode ser medido em parte pelo grau de intensidade (que pode ser exprimida em termos de profundidade de emoções ou na extensão da alegria) da performance. No grupo de batukaderas, as articulações de certos padrões rítmicos podem geralmente 4 ...
... Agawu (1987) defende que a vitalidade da música percussiva da África Ocidental deve ser apreciada e compreendida, a partir de uma perspectiva baseada em um contexto de esquema maior de expressão rítmica, no qual estejam incluídos todos os aspectos da vida tradicional do oeste africano. Anku (1997), por sua vez, aponta que a maioria dos estudos sobre a percussão africana realizados por etnomusicólogos têm um aspecto negativo em comum, que é identi cado por ele como "a general lack of a holistic approach" (ibid., pág. 212). ...
In this work, we try to address experiences and perceptions of motherhood in transnational social fields when managed and experienced in contexts of uncertainty and conflicting pressures
The analysis proposal is based on the phenomenon of female emigration from
Cape Verde to Portugal. The conceptual approach applies to the practice of batuko
- a complex performing genre that involves percussion, poetry, singing and dance. When a group of women (rarely a man appears in this context) sings and plays
percussion on a full circle or semicircle, with a soloist and a choir that
answers to her. A musical-choreographic expression found on the island of
Santiago of the archipelago of Cape Verde with features relatively
stable since the 18th century
... Os outros performers percebem esses temas e variações como uma força motriz que molda as suas percepções de mudança, enquanto que, eles, por sua vez, fornecem os ingredientes para o ostinato em background, ao longo do qual, múltiplas integrações possíveis são estabelecidas com cada orientação temática. Na medida em que a percepção do ostinato é monolítica, cabe ao tamboreiro líder a responsabilidad (ANKU, 1997 ...
... O ritmo dos corpos, o ritmo dos tambores.Há um consenso entre etnomusicólogos africanos e seus colegas que pesquisam a música percussiva do oeste africano com relação à inadequação dos métodos de análise musicológica ocidentais quando aplicados a este domínio.Locke (1982),Agawu (1987) eAnku (1997) são exemplos consonantes com relação ao fascínio exercido pela percussão poli rítmica africana sobre os etnomusicólogos, mas criticam severamente o fato de cada indivíduo ter tentado interpretar o ritmo africano a partir do seu background intelectual sobre a música e a teoria ocidentais tanto como performer, ou etnógrafo(KAUFMAN, 1980 apud ANKU, 1997). De acordo com Agawu (1987), a questão do papel fundamental da criação musical na vida e nas sociedades africanas, ainda continua a ser o tema padrão. ...
Esta pesquisa versa sobre as festas de Colá Son Jon (CSJ) na cidade do Porto Novo, ilha de Santo Antão, Cabo Verde. Visa analisar em especial a atuação dos principais músicos da festa, os tamboreiros, e o seu lugar na trajetória desta manifestação cultural, que vem passando por transformações significativas nos últimos tempos. O trabalho de campo compreendeu três etapas, duas delas realizadas durante a época das festas, em junho de 2013 e 2014, e uma realizada em dezembro de 2013, quando foram analisadas as diversas formas de sociabilidade praticadas pelos moradores de um bairro da periferia durante a mobilização que antecede, e permanece durante, as festividades. As festas de CSJ estão profundamente associadas com os modos de vida dos antepassados da ilha através da memória, do uso de objetos simbólicos e das representações vividas durante este ciclo. A abordagem etnomusicológica é inaugurada aqui, na medida em que procuro compreender o ofício do tamboreiro a partir da sua perspectiva. No meu procedimento metodológico procuro valorizar as práticas e saberes que o legitimam como um dos principais elementos do CSJ. Adicionalmente, a decisão analítica de valorizar a abordagem funcional da música objetivando valorizar uma concepção unitária, nos permite acessar as várias maneiras como nos expressamos ritmicamente, em uma variedade de modos de significação rítmica. Palavras-chave: Colá Son Jon, música, tamboreiro Abstract This research is about the festivities of Colá Son Jon (CSJ) in Porto Novo, at the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde. It aims to analyze the performance of the most important musicians to the festivity, the tamboreiros, and their place in this cultural manifestation trajectory, which has been under significant transformations lately. Fieldwork encompassed three steps. Two of them occurred during the festivities, in June 2013 and 2014, and during December 2013, when we analyzed the forms of sociability practiced by the residents of a neighborhood during the mobilization that precedes, and remains until the end of the festivities. The CSJ memory, the use of symbolic objects and the living representations during this cycle. The ethnomusicological approach comes into play in my work, aiming to comprehend the knowledge that makes them legitimate as one of the major elements that constitute the festivities of CSJ. In addition, the analytic decision of valuing the functional approach of music, aiming to value a unitary conception, allows us to enter the various ways how we express ourselves rhythmically, in a variety of rhythmic signification.
... Agawu's 1991 text Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music is widely held to be a landmark in this field. Willie Anku was another African scholar who, until his untimely death in 2010, offered revolutionary approaches to the analysis of African music (see in particular Anku, 1992Anku, , 1993Anku, , 1997Anku, , 2000Anku, , 2007. The works of Agawu, Anku and others assume greater significance in the context of another development in late twentieth century ethnomusicology, the movement I refer to as 'anti-formalism'. ...
... Each transcription tells us something about what the notator heard and considered important in the recording: each is a representation of a unique cognitive structure. A more recent example of variability in transcription is found in the respective interpretations of the adowa drumming tradition of the Ashanti people of Ghana by two African authors: Anku (1997) and Zabana (1997). ...
... Interlocking rhythms also occur in African music. Anku [5] studied the integration of different parts in African drumming and used musical examples from Akan funeral music to illustrate his theories. He distinguished three possible integration relationships: overlapping, interlocking, and adjacency and alternation. ...
... E (4,19) = [× · · · · × · · · · × · · · · × · · · ] E(5, 19) = [· × · · × · · · × · · · × · · · × ··] E(5, 19) = [· · × · · · × · · × · · · × · · · × .] E (5,19) = [· · · × · · · × · · · × · · × · · · ×]. ...
Several operations on Euclidean rhythms based on musical motivations are defined. The operations defined are complementation, alternation, and decomposition. Some mathematical properties are proved for each and the conditions under which a given operation preserves the Euclidean property are examined. Finally, connections are shown to interlocking Euclidean rhythms and tiling canons, and tiling quasi-canons are introduced.
... "Rhythmic style of Borneo ketebong," BioResources 19(4), 9447-9457. 9449 One of the fundamental elements of music, which has grown to be a powerful force in people's lives, is rhythm (Anku 1997). Interlocking rhythms is one of the various categories into which rhythmic patterns have been subdivided. ...
This work was conducted using the PicoScope signal extraction and Adobe Audition procedure, which revealed significant insights regarding the Iban traditional drum called ketebong. Three ketebong of different lengths, i.e., long, medium, and short sizes were studied. The amplitude of the long ketebong signal remains constant, showing that it had sustained its timbre for a longer duration compared to medium and short ketebong. Considering the diameter, all ketebong are almost similar, all the ketebong yield fundamental frequency at 50.15 Hz (i.e., G1# ~51.9 Hz). Although all ketebong showed similar fundamental frequency, Adobe Audition showed that the long ketebong has a brighter sound than the medium ketebong followed by the short ketebong. The purpose of this study is to derive the musical qualities of Gendang Pampat (GP), with a particular emphasis on the ketebong performance technique. The goal is to produce a rhythmic composition that integrates and reinforces a connected, expressive, rhythmic musical arrangement. The study aims to establish a framework by investigating the interlocking of rhythmic of GP to generate musical interpretation for composing a new repertoire for GP performance.
... There have been academic efforts towards understanding 'African' dance, music, dance-music, and their social, structural, as well as artistic processes that give meaning to their lived life manifestations (Agawu & Agawu, 1995;Anku, 1997;Jones, 1959;Kauffman,1980;Mabingo, 2020b;Welsh-Asante, 2010). For instance, Ruth Stone (1984) observed that a number of rhythmic phenomena come to the fore in a myriad of literature on African rhythm. ...
This article explores dance-musicking as a non-prescriptive process of interdependent engagement with dance and music in their teaching and learning contexts. The author asks how this engagement challenges and disrupts uneven institutional hierarchies, and how it cultivates a more holistic understanding of, and access to the knowledge embedded in the dancing and dance-musicking processes. The discussion is informed by the author's dance, music, and dance-music practice oscillating between formal and non-formal settings, and continuous research on the same in East Africa. It is premised on a critical observation that within the twentieth century, dance and music knowledge has continued to grow more into an institutionalized form than it has into a communal one. The article pivots the dance-musicking process as a cross-sectoral collaborative engagement for teaching and learning dance, music, and dance-music discussed on both micro and macro levels of artistic (co)existence. As such, it highlights core elements of 'communitarian' teaching and learning approaches, which have not favourably evolved alongside formal education. This situation is attributed to a lack in cross-sectoral complementarity between the formal and non-formal dance, and music knowledge bases —complementarity that works well in transforming higher education institutions into intellectual resources that positively influence, and that are influenced by their communities.
... 284 See Andrade and Bhattacharya, 2003. 285 'Resultant' and 'emergent' rhythms and 'inherent beats' have been noted by many musicologists studying traditional sub-Saharan African polyrhythmic drumming, such as Gerhard Kubik (1962), J.H.K. Nketia (1975, John Chernoff (1979), Kofi , Willie Anku (1997) and Simha Arom (1991). ...
ABSTRACT FOR WEB VERSION OF BOOK This monograph is on the evolutionary importance of music for hominin communication and in particular the emergence of a sing-song gestural proto language(or clusters of such languages) in early hunter-gatherer forms of the Homo genus from around one million years ago. The more complex messages of this primordial language consisted of holistic combinations or
strings of utterances, melodic pitches and gestures that had to be learnt and expressed in their entirety, although a slight degree of lexical juggling of the components of these combinatory phrases was possible. Inspite of not being a fully open grammatical, this proto language that some refer to a ‘musilanguage’ was, nevertheless, capable of transmitting simple symbolic information. For this hypothetical language the monogram draws on primate studies, the fossil record, adult-infant communication, genetics, cognitive studies, linguistics, musicology: and the fact that the very first although slight archaeological evidence symbolic behaviour appears in the Homo genus from around 600,000 years ago As such, the Homo-made musilanguage represents a halfway house between instinctive primate communication and grammatical language that appeared in modern humans around 200,000 years ago. A short synopsis of the ideas presented in this book is also found in my chapter entitled ‘Nine Reasons that Support Prehistoric Hominin Musicality and Musilanguage’ in the 2020 book ‘Music in Human Experience: Perspectives on a Musical Species’ edited by Johnathan Friedmann, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK. [ISBN (10): 1-5275-8010-5 & (13): 978-1-5275-8010-7]
... Music is made up of a variety of complicated components that harmoniously coincide together (Schwanz, 2015). Rhythm is one of the essential components that make up music, which has become an influential force in music lives (Anku, 1997). Rhythmic patterns have been divided into many categories, and one of them is interlocking rhythms. ...
Interlocking rhythms were defined as rhythms that are superimposed on each other. Usually, interlocking rhythm can be found in Balinese music. However, some music students do not realize the existence of interlocking rhythms in the music they play, especially in traditional music. For example, interlocking rhythm can happen when Gendang Ibu and Gendang Anak play together with different rhythmic patterns. Therefore, this research paper provides some information and reference to the students regarding interlocking rhythms between Gendang Ibu and Gendang Anak, which are rarely founded nowadays. At the same time, it will help musicians to master playing different kinds of rhythmic patterns and apply those skills in modern music. Keywords: traditional music; Gendang Silat; Qualitative; Phenomenology eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by E-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behavior Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioral Researchers on Asians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behavior Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI9.3949
... 12 McLachlan, N., (2000). 13 Refer to the discussion of balanced rhythms in Chapter 20. 3 The mental templates may be partly culturally acquired in the form of the "perception norms" discussed by Anku, W., (1997), p. 212. They may also be determined by the perceptual figural grouping mechanisms in the brain, as suggested by experiments performed by Handel, S., (1992Handel, S., ( , 1998b. 4 Blackmore, S., (2000), p. 59. ...
... At certain intensity level … performers will momentarily disassociate from the time line (without losing the flow of the basic timing relationship of the piece) to indulge in some sort of dialogue. (Anku 1997) In classical music, on the other hand, often improvisation is performed as a collage of repertoires. The liberty lies in the particular way the interpreter performs those parts, and, in the case of interaction between different players, the way each player responds relating to the other and to the repertoire, embedded in a memory given by hours of exercises performed by the hands, in the attempt to potentially surpass or follow those automatic mechanical movements, as well as the rules of symphony and harmony. ...
This paper uses the example of software and electronic devices used in musical improvisation to develop a critique of the dominant view of technology, specified by function and input–output behaviour, and optimized so that it is as domesticated as a faithful dog. The optimization in question attempts to avoid discontinuity and, more generally, unforeseen responses from a system, assuming a human being’s need for an interface is purely functional. Against this, we argue that some devices are, by their nature, complex and chaotic, and also that, because of this complexity, we can form deep attachments to them. These interspecies forms of affection are rooted in the sense of incompleteness of the human, its uncertainty in relation to an other and the reasons why, while a synthetic companion can be desirable because more predictable, in the case of improvisational interaction we desire our machinic counterparts to surprise us.
... From stimulating curiosity using simple rhythms, the sessions advanced to intricate rhythms using the calland-response approach (i.e., a technique that is characteristic of artistic performances in African communities, which involves an exchange between soloist or a group of soloists leading songs or instrumental rhythms and the choristers responding). The calland-response method took a form of imitation, itself a common teaching and performing technique in African drumming (Anku, 1997). At the beginning, campers had difficulties maintaining the main beat and tempo of the rhythms and providing the right response to the rhythms that the author played. ...
Dances and drum rhythms from African traditions have been integrated into summer camp activities in the United States as a response to the ever-globalized environments in which these camps are located and the diversity of the campers and teachers that they attract. This reflective article draws on critical reflections, observations and experiences of the author to reveal how he developed and applied instructional strategies for teaching Ugandan dances and drumming in a summer camp in 2013. The article discusses sociocultural education theories, selection of dances and accompaniment, and teaching plans for the dance and drumming activities. The author provides perspectives that teachers and instructors in recreational settings can consider as they identify, develop and apply activities from non-Western cultures in their programs.
... Determining such a threshold is no straightforward matter, however. Listener placement undoubtedly plays a role (Anku, 1997), as do timbre and amplitude, with similar sounds probably requiring smaller offsets in order to achieve attack separation (Sandell, 1995). A player's function within the ensemble is also relevant: as Butterfield (2007) has suggested, offsets are likely to be smaller between parts holding up a rhythmic groove than between parts in a melody-accompaniment pairing. ...
Working with an original corpus of Afro-Cuban drumming recordings shared by Andrew McGraw, I examine the nature and extent of non-simultaneous attacks between ensemble players. Quantitative analyses of ~30,000 drum onset times in four- and five-player performances reveal that these non-simultaneities, or near-unisons, are widespread and often sizeable. Their frequency and magnitude depend on selection style, measurement method used, location of the analysis window within the bar cycle, and instruments involved. I show that near-unisons result (in part) from the layering of 'idiosyncratically' timed ostinatos, and that the effect can be achieved by layering not only different timing contours but also equivalent contours that are slightly displaced with respect to each other. I also show that near-unison configurations can be either consistent or variable, so that certain leader-follower associations remain stable from cycle to cycle while others vary more freely. Beyond pairwise associations, I explore rhythmic density via the notion of onset clusters: groups of closely spaced attacks produced by up to five different players.
... In Western classical music rhythmic transformations are at the core of the theme-and-variations form, and are generally intrinsic to thematic development in the common practice period. In the percussion musical traditions of West Africa, rhythmic transformations including rephrasing, displacement, changes of division, metric modulation, segmentation, etc. [4,13,1,14], are generally applied to rhythmic cells. Other examples may be drawn from music with highly developed percussion such as the Afro-Cuban tradition [2,22,6], the Indian tabla tradition [5], the Indonesian gamelan tradition [25], or jazz music [18,28,24]. ...
The psychology-based rhythmic analysis of McLachlan in 'A Spatial Theory of Rhythmic Resolution', on music from the African and Javanese musical traditions using Gestalt theory and mathematical group theory, to include ternarizations and other timespans, is generalized. McLachlan used Gestalt psychology principles to define rhythmic transformations from a 12-pulse rhythm to a 16-pulse rhythm. The superposition of two groups of 3 pulses over two groups of 4 pulses is sufficient to generate a 12-pulse rhythm. The 12-pulse rhythm is snapped to the 16-pulse rhythm using the nearest neighbor rule but the snapping of the rhythm to pulses numbered 0, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 13 are restricted. The results show that the original rhythm has many onsets in common with the salient positions in the construction of McLachlan showing an efficient binarization.
... Some authors might alternatively interpret the meter as 6/8 (cf.Anku 1997). ...
One of the most intriguing trends in current popular culture in Ghana and its diaspora is the blurring of boundaries between the secular and the sacred realms. Fostered by the liberalization of the Ghanaian media sector in 1992 and the appropriation of media technology by the Charismatic churches that started mushrooming in the 1980s, new forms of Christian entertainment emerged that have come to dominate Ghana’s public sphere. Among these various media formats, “music is,” Rosalind Hackett observed for both Ghana and Nigeria, “one of the most important ways in which the Charismatics construct their own identity and invade space” (1998: 263). It has been noted that the prominence of gospel music is an important factor contributing to the new Charismatic churches’ enormous appeal (Gifford 2004: 35). At the same time, Christian popular culture has helped create a wider trans-denominational Charismatic public that is also strongly interlinked transnationally (e.g. Coleman 2000; Marshall-Fratani 1998). While many performers of commercial gospel music are rooted in Charismatic churches, bands, choirs, and congregations, in turn, take up songs, dances, and styles that circulate publicly, reintegrating them into the liturgical context of their worship. In doing so they have thus created a constant feedback between congregational and mass-mediated performance practices, facilitating the emergence of a common religious format and aesthetics (De Witte 2003; Meyer 2008 and 2009).
Considering the prominence of gospel music in Ghana’s public sphere (see also Atiemo 2006; Carl 2012 and 2013; Collins 2004 and 2012), as well as the central place it occupies in Charismatic worship itself, this article explores gospel music performance at the interface of ritual and media. I particularly focus on the interrelationship between the performance practices of congregational worship and the mediated performances that inhabit Ghana’s mediascape in various audiovisual formats. Existing studies understand Charismatic expressive culture in Ghana as a “conversion to modernity” (Marshall-Fratani 1998: 286; cf. Dilger 2008; Meyer 1999), as cathartic relief (Collins 2004), or in terms of the indigenization of Christianity (Amanor 2004 and Atiemo 2006). Instead, I argue for approaching this culture as ritual performance, as a form of mimesis that involves embodied patterns of ritualized behavior as well as playful improvisation and that serves, in this way, as a medium of self-creation and self-transformation, what, with reference to anthropologist Thomas Csordas (1990 and 1994), I call the ritualization of the self (see also Butler 2002 and 2008). In doing so, I want to contribute to the understanding of an aspect of Ghanaian popular culture that has so far received relatively little attention. Additionally, I want to add to the more detailed study of Charismatic ritual in general which, as Joel Robbins remarked, “despite its widely acknowledged importance, […] is notably scarce in the literature” (2004: 126).
Towards this end, I will adopt a double focus on gospel music as media content as well as congregational performance practice. Analytically, my argument draws on both the close reading of selected gospel music videos, as well as ethnographic data that emerged from my ongoing research in Accra and elsewhere in southern Ghana since 2006. My experiences with Charismatic worship have focused particularly on the ministry of a smaller church in the Teshie-Nungua Estates in the southeast of the Accra metropolitan area, Christ Victory Ministries International, which I regularly attended between 2006 and 2009 and since then on a non-regular basis whenever I happen to be in Accra. Over the course of the past seven years I had the chance to participate in and observe church services and other programs at Christ Victory on many occasions, to conduct formal interviews with church officials and musicians, as well as to engage in innumerable informal conversations with congregation members and to form lasting friendships with some of them. In 2011, I additionally embarked on a study of the reception of gospel music videos consisting of a series of focus group discussions with graduate students at the University of Cape Coast. On a more personal note and to position myself within this ethnographic setting, I should also add that I am not a Charismatic Christian myself, but that I grew up within the tradition of German...
... Mensah wrote several character pieces for the piano, solo voice and pianoforte, and composed several signature tunes for broadcasting such as for Hausa News on Radio Ghana, Ghana Muntie for Radio Ghana News in English and for Ghana TV News (Mensah 1975). Anku (1997Anku ( , 2004 is arguably the first Ghanaian composer to have successfully integrated African traditional dance idioms into art music instrumental compositions. Anku, who conducted a series of computer-assisted analyses on African rhythms, was able to translate, into compositional terms, his findings, paying particular attention to the generative processes inherent in these dance idioms (Euba 1993:11;Nketia 1993:4). ...
This article provides an insight into the thought processes of a composer, offering a guide for listeners to think creatively through the music. It presents a panoramic view and an analysis of the piano trio based on ‘Sasabonsam's Match’ composed by the author. The 18-minute work called Pivicafrique for piano, violin and cello exemplifies Nketia's syncretic approach to contemporary African composition and Euba's theory of African pianism.
... SeeLocke (1990:passim) andChernoff (1979:passim). 2 See, for example,Anku (1997),Agawu (1986), Jones (1959,Kubik (1962),Locke (1978Locke ( , 1982Locke ( , 2005, andMerriam (1981). ...
... Others even went as far as developing a new notation system that better suits the rhythmic complexities of African music. And even then, Willy Anku (1997) explains that some ethnomusicologists are becoming so well-trained in other forms of music and their notation that they are becoming "bi-musical." No matter how notation is interpreted or viewed, though, the truth remains that it is of no importance to the native African for experience trumps all other forms of learning. ...
“Music is in the veins and blood of the Senegalese people” (Bakayoko 2007). This paper aims to take a look into the reason for why this is. By examining the historical and present context of music in Senegal, one can better understand the social aspects of its music. In addition, analyses concerning the rhythmic and pedagogical importance will help provide a better picture for how we, as Westerners, can try to comprehend this rather undocumented subject.
... The solo improvisation must respect the style and feeling of the piece which is usually determined by the timeline. One common technique to achieve this effect is to "borrow" notes from the timeline, and to alternate between playing subsets of notes from the timeline and from other rhythms that interlock with the timeline [Ank97,Aga86]. In the words of Kofi Agawu [Aga86], "It takes a fair amount of expertise to create an effective improvisation that is at the same time stylistically coherent". ...
We demonstrate relationships between the classic Euclidean algorithm and many other elds of study, particularly in the context of music and distance geometry. Specically, we show how the structure of the Euclidean algorithm denes a family of rhythms which encompass over forty timelines (ostinatos) from traditional world music. We prove that these Euclidean rhythms have the mathematical property that their onset patterns are distributed as evenly as possible: they maximize the sum of the Euclidean distances between all pairs of onsets, viewing onsets as points on a circle. Indeed, Euclidean rhythms are the unique rhythms that maximize this notion of evenness. We also show that essentially all Euclidean rhythms are deep: each distinct distance between onsets occurs with a unique multiplicity, and these multiplicies form an interval 1; 2;:::;k 1. Finally, we characterize all deep rhythms, showing that they form a subclass of generated rhythms, which in turn proves a useful property called shelling. All of our results for musical rhythms apply equally well to musical scales. In addition, many of the problems we explore are interesting in their own right as distance geometry problems on the circle; some of the same problems were explored by Erd} os in the plane.
... . Fig. 2. The RTP of most passages with changing rhythms can be more difficult to determine, particularly for listeners of different ethnicities or audiences unfamiliar with other clues such as text-based themes or dance patterns (from Anku, 1997, pp. 234 – 235, bars 17 – 22 ...
Willie Anku's rhythmic analyses relate the structure of drum patterns to recurring 12- or 16-beat rhythmic sets. Although Anku asserted that the distance between the start of these sets and a fixed time point was an important feature of a work, his rules for labelling these sets were not made explicit. This paper uses a computer simulation that trained on parts of Anku's analyses to predict the labels Anku used in other parts of his analyses. The simulation's rules are then extracted and presented to aid future analyses. The paper also expands Anku's concepts of pivot sets, prime forms of sets, and attack density.
... SeeLocke (1990:passim) andChernoff (1979:passim). 2 See, for example,Anku (1997),Agawu (1986), Jones (1959,Kubik (1962),Locke (1978Locke ( , 1982Locke ( , 2005, andMerriam (1981). ...
... The solo improvisation must respect the style and feeling of the piece which is usually determined by the timeline. A common technique to achieve this effect is to "borrow" notes from the timeline, and to alternate between playing subsets of notes from the timeline and from other rhythms that interlock with the timeline [Ank97,Aga86]. In the words of Kofi Agawu [Aga86], "It takes a fair amount of expertise to create an effective improvisation that is at the same time stylistically coherent". ...
We demonstrate relationships between the classic Euclidean algorithm and many other fields of study, particularly in the context of music and distance geometry. Specifically, we show how the structure of the Euclidean algorithm defines a family of rhythms which encompass over forty timelines (\emph{ostinatos}) from traditional world music. We prove that these \emph{Euclidean rhythms} have the mathematical property that their onset patterns are distributed as evenly as possible: they maximize the sum of the Euclidean distances between all pairs of onsets, viewing onsets as points on a circle. Indeed, Euclidean rhythms are the unique rhythms that maximize this notion of \emph{evenness}. We also show that essentially all Euclidean rhythms are \emph{deep}: each distinct distance between onsets occurs with a unique multiplicity, and these multiplicies form an interval . Finally, we characterize all deep rhythms, showing that they form a subclass of generated rhythms, which in turn proves a useful property called shelling. All of our results for musical rhythms apply equally well to musical scales. In addition, many of the problems we explore are interesting in their own right as distance geometry problems on the circle; some of the same problems were explored by Erd\H{o}s in the plane.
O projeto propõe uma etnografia da escuta junto a comunidades quilombolas do semiárido piauiense onde pessoas detentoras de práticas e saberes tradicionais são reconhecidas pelo Município e Estado. As demandas, de mapeamento e dentificação dos benefícios proporcionados e problemas enfrentados otidianamente pelos quilombolas, emergem a partir da popularização das políticas públicas do patrimônio cultural imaterial: Patrimônio Vivo do Estado do Piauí, desde 2021. A abordagem crítica questiona uma dimensão mais localizada onde predominam ausências de equipamentos municipais e infraestrutura; de empatia e vontade sociopolítica; de cuidado e compromisso socioprodutivo e onde está em curso processos de
desenraizamento e desterritorialização geracionais no que diz respeito aos saberes, práticas e modos de vida tradicionais em comunidade. Os procedimentos metodológicos ancorados nos paradigmas de Anansi instrumentalizam as escutas e a apreensão de paisagens sonoras, a leitura das polifonias, polirritmias e polissemias inerentes às cosmopolíticas da hospitalidade que sustentam as tradições de resiliência a partir de perspectivas holísticas.
This paper undertakes a comprehensive examination of the complex structural connections that exist between musical accompaniment and traditional movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in this influential piece of literature. This research utilises an innovative mixed-methods design that combines meticulous musicological analysis with ethnographic fieldwork in order to deconstruct the intricate interplay between rhythm, movement, and cultural significance. The study reveals a wide range of vocal and instrumental components from various communities that serve a crucial function in the performance, embodying cultural identities and societal values. The results indicate that musical accompaniment and dance in African traditions participate in a dialogue that surpasses the Western perception of accompaniment as subordinate. This exposes musical accompaniment as a fundamental element of cultural conservation and communal self-expression. In essence, the research highlights the dynamic and ever-changing nature of African heritage as it relates to performance arts, thereby making a significant scholarly contribution to the disciplines of music theory, ethnomusicology and cultural anthropology.
The standard pattern rhythm is a ubiquitous and homogenous feature in the indigenous music of most sub-Saharan African communities. Discourses on the existence, usage and form of the rhythm have been prominent in research on African music from around the mid-twentieth century, but not much work has been done on the creative synergy that exists between the rhythm and the fast-evolving and adaptive socio-cultural phenomenon of Nigerian popular music. Naija hip-hop is presently the most dynamic and prominent genre of popular music in Nigeria. Twenty Naija hiphop songs released from 2009 to 2018 were purposively selected and the musicological elements, role and impact of the standard pattern as an inherent feature in the songs were examined. The theories of Formalism and Semiotics were adopted for this study, and findings revealed several
musicological models and structural archetypes like the Hierarchical Structure of the Rhythmic Elements, the musicological role of these elements, bass drum modes and the standard pattern stroke counts in the selected Naija hip-hop songs. These findings can be adopted as prototypes for analysing Naija hip-hop and other types of music. The study also establishes that the standard pattern plays a critical role in the identity construct of this musical genre in a way that enhances its Afrocentricity and reception. The study recommends further studies geared towards investigating the standard pattern using the musicological approach. This will be of help in establishing the formal dimensions of this rhythmic feature in its transition from the traditional forms into modern manifestations in contemporary popular music.
Keywords: Naija hip-hop, Nigerian popular music, musicological analysis, standard pattern
RESILIENT FORMS OF TRADITION IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
IN LISBON: KOLA SAN JON AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY. The contemporary urban sphere presents us with challenges of different (dis)orders and is itself one of the main issues to be addressed nowadays. This article deals with the public use of city space in neoliberal times and the modalities and consequences of its appropriation for social life, according to Lefebvre. The essay focuses on the Bairro Cova da Moura and the inscription, in 2013, of the Cape Verdean Kola San Jon in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The analysis is based on ethnographic research undertaken between 2011 and 2018 and deals with Kola San Jon both as a cultural practice that actualizes social processes and as a strategical identity device that reclaims the visibility of the community. We focus on the yearly festival at Cova da Moura and the schedule of activities outside the neighbourhood, considering the struggle for the valorization of the place in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, as well as the process of recognizing Kola as heritage in Portugal. The reflection around a practice committed to strategies of action that generate forms of resistance and identity-based assertion, takes us to the question of the right to the city, both in relation to a place that capitalism pushes to the margins as well as a playful event capable of the generating citizens’ centralities. Kola San Jon calls to the fore the notion that we currently inhabit, with increasing intensity, webs in which tangled trajectories cross each other, in ways that are more important than frontiers.
One of the main aesthetic obstacles contemporary African choreographers face is often the assumption that all African dance is based on so-called traditional dance forms, and that somehow an African artist would have to undergo a process of modernization for the presentation on the Western proscenium stage, often facilitated by the collaborative encounter with Western contemporary and modern dance techniques. This chapter explores the way in which Alphonse Tiérou, Zab Maboungou and Germaine Acogny have been instrumental in defining distinct sources and vocabularies as well as choreographic strategies for contemporary African dance theatre that resist such white colonialist models of representation.
Meter serves as a robust temporal referent for the creation and perception of musical rhythm. In music from Africa and the diaspora, a parallel referent is often present in the form of repetitive rhythmic patterns known as timelines. This paper examines how a well-known timeline (the standard pattern) serves as a grounding framework for quinto (lead conga drum) rhythms heard in different drumming performances of Afro-Cuban rumba columbia. Focusing on the layout of alignment points between the constituent elements of the various temporal layers—rhythm, timeline, and possible meters—indicates that the quinto players may be orienting their playing according to the timeline's onsets.
CUBANEO IN LATIN PIANO: A PARAMETRIC APPROACH TO GESTURE, TEXTURE, AND MOTIVIC VARIATION COPYRIGHT Orlando Enrique Fiol 2018 Dr. Carol A. Muller Over the past century of recorded evidence, Cuban popular music has undergone great stylistic changes, especially regarding the piano tumbao. Hybridity in the Cuban/Latin context has taken place on different levels to varying extents involving instruments, genres, melody, harmony, rhythm, and musical structures. This hybridity has involved melding, fusing, borrowing, repurposing, adopting, adapting, and substituting. But quantifying and pinpointing these processes has been difficult because each variable or parameter embodies a history and a walking archive of sonic aesthetics. In an attempt to classify and quantify precise parameters involved in hybridity, this dissertation presents a paradigmatic model, organizing music into vocabularies, repertories, and abstract procedures. Cuba's pianistic vocabularies are used very interactively, depending on genre, composite ensemble texture, vocal timbre, performing venue, and personal taste. These vocabularies include: melodic phrases, harmonic progressions, rhythmic cells and variation schemes to replace repetition with methodical elaboration of the piano tumbao as a main theme. These pianistic vocabularies comprise what we actually hear. Repertories, such as pre-composed songs, ensemble arrangements, and open- ended montuno and solo sections, situate and contextualize what we hear in real life musical performances. Abstract procedures are the thoughts, aesthetics, intentions, and parametric rules governing what Cuban/Latin pianists consider possible. Abstract procedures alter vocabularies by displacing, expanding, contracting, recombining, permuting, and layering them. As Cuba's popular musics find homes in its musical diaspora (the United States, Latin America and Europe), Cuban pianists have sought to differentiate their craft from global salsa and Latin jazz pianists. Expanding the piano's gestural/textural vocabulary beyond pre-Revolutionary traditions and performance practices, the timba piano tumbao is a powerful marker of Cuban identity and musical pride, transcending national borders and cultural boundaries.
Drumming is one of the most common instrumental practices on the African continent, and forms part of various cultural music practices of different ethnic groups. In traditional African drumming societies, drumming expertise is acquired aurally-orally. As culture evolves, so does the transmission of indigenous African music. Traditional music undergoes adaptations to fit recontextualised environments, including classrooms. Modern African Classical Drumming (MACD) is a contemporary notated drumming practice based on traditional practices. It is informed by indigenous African musical arts theory and promotes complementary interdependence of performance arts in a holistic performance presentation. MACD can be easily adapted into classrooms, promoting both music literacy and traditional African instruments. Incorporating traditional music into modern classrooms for the promotion of multicultural music education, and the preservation and propagation of the musical heritage of African drumming to younger generations are some reasons for the evolution of MACD. Inevitably, this continuum demands adjustments and compromises to be made in favour of recontextualising MACD. Notation used in MACD does not include performance markings – but merely minimal rhythmic guidelines. In this article theoretical elements of creativity, analysis and performance have been drawn on to facilitate teaching and learning of this particular drumming genre. Score analysis and interpretation guidelines are designed to equip both novice teachers and learners to acquire basic MACD interpretation and performance skills.
Attracting scholars from a wide array of academic disciplines, popular music studies are burgeoning today. The excellence of the musical scholarship that is produced by anthropologists and literary critics demonstrates that the ability to read music and conduct musical analysis is by no means requisite for thinking about music. Coming from a performance background myself, however, I am often struck by the absence of attention to style and aesthetics in much academic writing about Latin and Caribbean music. This lack of attention, of course, issues at least partly from the fact that the techniques of music analysis and notation, allied with the study of Western art music, may seem irrelevant to the political, economic, and gender questions that dominate today’s humanistic discourse. Although in 1958, Charles Seeger warned against the assumption that a visual medium can represent aural experience, he did not advocate the dismissal of musical notation and analysis. Instead, he made the now-classic distinction between “prescriptive notation,” a system that facilitates musical performance, and “descriptive notation,” an analytical tool that translates sound into a visual medium (1977: 168–81).
This article explores the instrumentality of traditional African drums in influencing human behavior, and debunks viewpoints held by some critics that these drums are mere instruments for entertainment, voodoo, or rituals. It argues that as cultural artifacts, the drums are a primal symbol (a speech surrogate form qualified as drum language) used for rhetorical purposes to influence social behavior, to generate awareness, and to prompt responses for the realization of personhood and the formation of group identity This ascription of rhetorical functionality to the African drum-dance culture provides interesting insights into the nature of rhetorical performance in the non-Western world.
Homometric rhythms (chords) are those with the same histogram or multiset of intervals (distances). The purpose of this note is threefold. First, to point out the potential importance of isospectral vertices in a pair of homometric rhythms. Second, to establish a method ("pumping") for generating an infinite sequence of homometric rhythms that include isospectral vertices. And finally, to introduce the notion of polyphonic homo- metric rhythms, which apparently have not been previ- ously explored.
Opening Paragraph
Most people are vaguely aware that the characteristic feature of African music is its rhythms. Some would say with the late Professor Hornbostel of Berlin that ‘it is syncopated past comprehension’; others would claim that any competent Western musician could reproduce African rhythms. Does the truth lie with either of these views or does it lie somewhere between them ? It is time we knew what Africans really do: and it is the purpose of this paper to give some account of the bases of their musical practice.
Structural set analysis of African music Structural set analysis of African music Legon, Ghana: Bawa Soundstage Production. . 1995a. Towards a cross-cultural theory of rhythm in African drumming Creative processes in African-American drumming in Pittsburgh and its rela-tionship to jazz
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