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REASSESSING THE ZIMBABWEAN CHIPENDANI (Article withdrawn)
No full textDue to an error in the original publication this article will be reprinted in the 2018 edition of African Music. We apologise for any inconvenience. (Editor: African Music
Understanding African music -- Listen and learn: music made easy -- For future generations: Hugh Tracey and the International Library of African Music -- Sound of Africa -- Music of Africa -- Historical recordings by Hugh Tracey -- Soul safari series -- The Dhow Countries Music Academy: Zanzibar
No full textPORTRAITS OF SAHARAWI MUSIC: WHEN CULTURAL PRESERVATION MEETS POLITICAL ACTIVISM
Get PDFDrawing from ethnographic fieldwork done mainly in the Saharawi refugee camps and the development of "Portraits of Saharawi Music” (2013—2014), a collaborative music archiving and research project in partnership with the British Library and the Saharawi Ministry of Culture, this article analyses issues in the political realities for Saharawi refugees from the perspective of the musicians and the cultural authorities in the refugee camps. In addition, it explores methodological and ethical issues derived from the uses of political and cultural activism as an ethnomusicological research method. It examines the interactions of the ideologies, motivations and personal relationships of the researcher, the musicians and the institutions involved in this recording project, focusing on the selection of repertoire as an activist act and the impact of doing advocacy research on an extremely vulnerable social group as the Saharawi refugee community. In agreement with basic principles of social responsibility of academia, it supports the role of "activist researcher”; but it cautions that it is essential for researchers to understand how relations of knowledge and power are produced, perpetuated, and challenged in specific situations of conflict, in order to turn their research into a true collaborative action
A FAILED SHOWCASE OF EMPIRE?: THE GOLD COAST POLICE BAND, COLONIAL RECORD KEEPING, AND A 1947 TOUR OF GREAT BRITAIN
Get PDFIn 1947, the Gold Coast Police Band embarked on a four-month long tour of Great Britain. The event, which was organized by the Accra government and Colonial Office in London, was designed to be a carefully-scripted showcase of the Empire\u27s merits and future prospects. As a result, the bulk of the written records that colonial officials compiled about it focused not on its actual progression or outcomes, but on their own preparations and confidence about its "inevitable” success. This article examines this pattern of colonial record keeping and looks beyond its overt declarations to analyze a series of incomplete exchanges, isolated letters, and brief references that tell a much more complicated story. Insisting that these archival fragments reveal that the tour did not go as planned, it also proposes that we can use them to engage two topics important to studies of African music during the colonial period: the state\u27s strategic use of music and the colonial archive\u27s utility as a source of information about past musical events
PRESERVATION AND REVITALISATION OF THE ENDANGERED GĨKŨYŨ FLUTE
Get PDFBased on observations, interviews, and recordings collected in Kenya in May-June 2015, this article presents a summary of the search for a nearly "extinct” musical instrument and the need for advocacy research. The måtårårå, originally an oblique bark flute of the Agåkåyå of Kenya, is also made from more durable bamboo and plastic. Initial investigations suggested that the flute was no longer played due to urbanization, modernization of farming techniques, and the loss of certain rituals and dances. Discovery of several elders who still play måtårårå and the process of watching them build and play bark, bamboo, and spider web måtårårås is narrated. The challenges of preserving a tradition when the cultural context for performance no longer exists and potential opportunities for a re-introduction of the måtårårå to contemporary Kenyan culture through intentional curriculum, traditional performances and advocacy in Kenyan cultural centers are discussed
CHIMURENGA RENAISSANCE: DOUBLE DOUBLENESS IN THE DIASPORIC MUSIC OF TENDAI MARAIRE
Get PDFOver the past decade, emerging Seattle-based artist Tendai Maraire, the American-born son of Zimbabwean teacher, performer, and ethnomusicologist, Dumisani Maraire, has crafted a unique musical position by marshaling multiple diasporic strands in his music. These include both the centuries-old African-American diaspora that took shape through the "Black Atlantic,” as well as an emerging diaspora that is specifically Zimbabwean in nature. In this article, it is argued that the layering of these distinct diasporic histories has fostered a type of "doubled doubleness” in Tendai Maraire\u27s music, extending DuBois\u27 original conception of "double consciousness” to encompass multiple sites of identity location: the American superculture, the Shona culture of his parents, the old African diaspora, and the new Zimbabwean diaspora. It is further argued that Maraire has articulated this "doubled doubleness” musically through his relationships to musical styles associated with both old and new African diasporas, most notably North American hip-hop and Zimbabwean chimurenga, a genre that has historically functioned as a form of resistance to colonial rule
NEGOTIATING MUSICAL CULTURES IN COLONIAL HYMNODY: ANALYSING LOCALISED HARMONISATIONS OF WESTERN HYMN TUNES
Get PDFThis essay analyses localised hymn tunes from the College of the Transfiguration (Anglican seminary) in Grahamstown, South Africa. Through several examples, it is demonstrated how western and southern African musical systems have intersected, with particular reference to aspects of harmony which have been re-interpreted to conform to local norms. Three features emerge as dominant markers of localisation: parallel harmonisation, localised westernisms and the skipping-third process. The musical meaning of the localisation process as it takes place at the College of Transfiguration is discussed. Transcriptions of performances show that the melodic norms of western hymnody are maintained, while the harmonic underpinning are radically transformed, suggesting that the meaning is not located in one particular tradition, but represents a sense of cultural flux