Rhodes University: Hosted Journals
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Obituary: Merwynne Twentyman Jones
Get PDFOne of this area’s most enthusiastic amateur genealogists and historians was lost to us when Merwynne Twentyman Jones died peacefully at Damant Lodge on 10 February 2021, aged 85
SOKKIE DANCING IN PRETORIA: POPULAR AFRIKAANS MUSIC, DANCE, AND IDENTITY
Get PDFAfrikaans protest music influenced by rock has received a substantial degree of academic attention in recent years. While significant, the emphasis on Afrikaans protest music has left Afrikaans pop music largely unexamined. As this genre enjoys wide popularity amongst Afrikaners, this article considers this lacuna in academic inquiry. Afrikaans pop music is widely consumed in South Africa and is a major part of its music industry. In this article, I bring into focus how a strand of music, that might seem to avoid meaningful dialogue through superficial lyrics, forms part of an Afrikaner subculture and a strategy to preserve identity, norms, and values. In particular, I argue for a wider contextual understanding of music and the limitations of lyrical analysis to produce meaningful insight into music’s role in enabling participants to negotiate identity and place. Drawing on fieldwork conducted at Presley’s, a night club in Pretoria, I elucidate this process through the dialogue between Afrikaans music and sokkie dance
CONSTRUCTING DAGARA GYIL PEDAGOGY: THE LEGACY OF BERNARD WOMA
Get PDFBernard Woma (1966–2018) was a virtuoso musician and global ambassador of Dagara music. From his extensive outreach, workshops, and touring, Bernard’s work teaching the Dagara gyil (xylophone) around the world is recognisable through his detailed compositions emphasising the use of Dagara musical forms. His founding of the Dagara Music Center in Medie, Ghana in 2000, provides instruction on Ghanaian music and dance to hundreds of non-Ghanaian students. Bernard’s pedagogical pieces for gyil introduce Dagara music systematically, building students’ technique and facility on the instruments in addition to ensuring student comprehension of Dagara musical practice. Based on sixteen years of apprenticeship with Bernard, this article investigates his pedagogy, detailing his methodical process through his use of cultural and educational scaffolding techniques theorised as “deliberate practice” by Ericsson and Pool (2016) and underscores the importance of recognising the individual African musician in academic and educational settings
APPALACHIAN BLACK FIDDLING: HISTORY AND CREATIVITY
Get PDFDiscussions on Appalachian music in the United States most often evoke images of instruments such as the fiddle and banjo, and a musical heritage identified primarily with Europe and European Americans, as originators or creators, when in reality, many Europeans were influenced or taught by African-American fiddlers. Not only is Appalachian fiddling a confluence of features that are both African- and European-derived, but black fiddlers have created a distinct performance style using musical aesthetics identified with African and African-American culture. In addition to a history of black fiddling and African Americans in Appalachia, this article includes a discussion of the musicking of select Appalachian black fiddlers
BRASS BAND MUSIC IN GHANA: THE INDIGENISATION OF EUROPEAN MILITARY MUSIC
Get PDFLocal brass bands have become an indispensable factor in weddings, processions, rituals of birth or death, at Christmas and New Year festivities in many parts of the globe. Remains of European brass bands are widely distributed throughout Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. )ese bands are of both military and missionary origin. They are an important component of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial expressive culture. Despite their uniqueness and widespread presence across the world, brass bands have received limited attention in Ghana. )is paper aims to address this lack by offering a comprehensive account of the contemporary situation of brass band music in Ghana. I trace the history of this musical world and explore the diverse ways military and missionary activities have shaped amateur brass band musical activities in Ghana. I discuss the distribution and band formations across Ghana, viewing it in five sections that detail different types of brass bands; church, town, service, school and “sharbo” bands. I continue by looking at the beginning, development, workings and indigenisation of European military music in local popular culture and provide an account of brass band music as observed in Ghana today. I argue that indigenisation is not a straightforward process of adaptation, rather, indigenisation is a process of ongoing aesthetic tensions and differences resulting in new musical forms and new forms of socialisation organised around musical performance
The State of Sailing Ships of the 19th Century
Get PDFIn the days of sailing ships, life was rigorous, very hard and dangerous. Ships were not checked prior to sailing although there was a Merchant Shipping Act, unfortunately not enforced until 1854 when the Board of Trade was formed
LIVENESS, MULTIFOCALITY, EAVESDROPPING IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL FIELDWORK RESEARCH AT GHANAIAN FESTIVALS AND ROYAL FUNERALS
Get PDFEthnomusicological research that involves live, sprawling, multifocal and integrated ceremonies often present liveness-induced challenges that may undermine the authenticity of the research outcomes. )is article describes multifocal and integrated music making performances such as festivals and royal funerals in Ghana and how the vagaries of liveness are largely responsible for nuanced peculiarities which every live musical performance assumes. )e article argues in favour of a central role for eavesdropping among informed participating audience members in data gathering efforts as an important strategy for dealing with liveness-induced contingencies in multifocal and integrated performance events