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Differences in the actual intervals employed by various African peoples are found in all three types. Some use equidistant pentatonic; some stick to an hemitonic pentatonic forms while others use both the hemitonic and the An hemitonic. Among those who sing in varieties of the pentatonic scale may be mentioned the Yoruba, the Fan of Dahomey, the Ewe of Southeastern Ghana, the Adangme of Ghana and many of the ethnic groups in the Mole-Dagbani linguistic group. Those who sing in varieties of the heptatonic include the Ibo and the Kalabari of Nigeria, the Akan, Konkomba, Builsa, Kassena-Nankani of Ghana and the Baule of Ivory Coast, to name just a few.
These styles can of course be grouped together into either mutually tolerant groups or mutually exclusive groups irrespective of geographical contiguity or the" culture areas" to which they might otherwise be supposed to belong. The singing style of the Ijaw- and Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria, the Akan, Builsa, Kassena and Basare of Ghana and Togo, the Baule of Ivory Coast, the Bulu of Cameroons, the Bemba of Zambia, the Lochosi of Angola, for example, represent a mutually tolerant group, while the Bambara, Malinke, Wolof and peul of the Sudanic areas of West Africa represent another group.
When we turn to instrumental forms, we can list a number of divergences; for instance, in the distribution of instrumental types or species, and more particularly in tuning systems. Take for example the striking differences in the tuning of harps in Uganda described by Wachsmann. According to him, the Gwere tune their six stringed harp in such a way that the octave is divided into four equal steps, and the player avoids sounding two strings together. On the other hand, the Tesot, who also playa six stringed harp, tune it in such a way that two strings can be pulled together. The Alur play as even-stringed harp in a pentatonic pattern, while the Ganda possess an eight-stringed harp arranged in equidistant sequences but playing a five-tone scale. The Konjo, on the other hand, play an eight-stringed harp which plays a seven tone scale.
Divergences such as these can be multiplied. However, it must be pointed out that, in many parts of Africa , there are common structural principles which are observed by users of these divergent forms and which may be manifested in the treatment of melody and rhythm, in the approach to polyphony, or the use of various musical devices. That is to say, theoretically African music is a body of structural principles, some with wide application and others with only limited application.
The cultural factors which govern the application of these principles to musical expression seem to operate on a much wider scale than the diversity of forms seems to suggest. Hence while each local musical culture may pose special problems of meaning and significance, there are other problems which one meets in one form or another as one moves from one area to another and which permit one to take an over-view of music in Africa as an aggregate of group specializations based on common principles.
This view is strengthened by the historical picture of the music of Africa that is emerging from the little work that has been done so far. It is a picture which shows considerable interaction between African peoples, resulting in some cases in the borrowing of musical forms or musical instruments, a fact which calls for a comparative approach in the study of form, content and in meaning in African music and which justifies the need for taking and over-view of this music.
In Tanzania it has been shown, for example, that the Sandawe now possess many musical instruments which may have been borrowed from other people in fairly recent times. Similarly, Wachsmann has shown that a certain historical picture of musical interaction emerges when one takes into account oral traditions, archaeological and available documentary evidence and the distribution of musical instruments, particularly trumpet sets and harps, in Uganda . The hand piano, according to him, reached Uganda from the Congo , and there are people in Uganda among whom the introduction of drums is "within living memory".
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