Music in West Africa : experiencing music, expressing culture / Ruth M. Stone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stone, Ruth M.

Series:

Global music series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music--Africa, West--History and criticism.

Music.

West Africa.

Ethnic music recordings--Africa, West.

Local Subjects:

Ethnic music recordings--Africa, West.

Physical Description:

xvi, 112 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

Summary:

Music in West Africa is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present. Music in West Africa presents fundamental style concepts of West African music using a focused case study of performance in Liberia, West Africa, among the Kpelle people. The book discusses the diversity, motifs, and structure of West African music within the larger patterns of the region's culture, highlighting those aspects of Kpelle music that are common to many other West African traditions. It also describes how music and dance in West Africa are tied to the fabric of everyday social and political life.

Kpelle musicians value musical performance where multiple performers each contribute aspects of sound that fit together in elaborate ways. Drawing upon her extensive fieldwork and research, author Ruth Stone -- who was raised in the Bong County region of Liberia -- focuses on key stylistic elements that Kpelle performers articulate and emphasize: faceting or breaking music into smaller parts, layering tone colors, part-counterpart relationships in musical structures, and time and polyrhythm. She explores fascinating parallels to these analytic themes in the textiles and masks of related arts and in broader cultural practices such as greeting sequences. Music in West Africa is enhanced by eyewitness accounts of local performances, interviews with key performers, and vivid illustrations. Packaged with a 70-minute CD containing examples of the music discussed in the book, it features guided listening and hands-on activities that encourage readers to engage actively and critically with the music.

Contents:

1. Traveling to West Africa 1

Journeys 1

Tools 9

West Africa in Perspective 11

Music in the Arts and Life 15

Style Areas 18

Ideas about Performance 18

Musical Instruments 19

2. Performance Facets 22

Vocal Facets in Epic Performance 25

Instrumental Facets in Horn Ensemble 27

Continuity in Performance: Woni Ensemble 30

Vocal and Instrumental Facets in Bush Clearing Songs 36

Parallels in the Arts 39

Faceting: Cutting the Edge 40

Cloth Pattern 40

Masks and Carved Figures 42

Greeting Sequences 42

Obscuring Facets 44

3. Voices: Layered Tone Colors 47

Timbre in African Music 47

Instruments: The Sounds of a Triangular Framezither 52

The Centrality of the Voice 54

Instruments: Musical Bow 54

Sound Texture in Epic 56

Social Resonance 61

Other Timbral Dimensions of Sound 61

Symbolic Association of Tone Color 62

Cloth Color 63

4. Part-Counterpart: Call and Response 64

Call and Response Variations 64

Nonoverlapping Call and Response 65

Rice Planting Song 65

Children's Counting Song 66

Kpelle Rubber Camp Music 66

Entertainment Love Song 67

Overlapping Call and Response 68

Musical Dramatic Folktale (Chante Fable) 68

Epic Performance 70

Dialogic Relationships 72

Resonance 74

Drummer-Supporting Drummer 74

Gifts that Keep the Performance Going 74

Chief-Counterpart 76

Poro-Sande 77

5. Time and Polyrhythm 79

A Master Drummer's Life History 79

Fitting the Pieces Together 84

Rhythmic Patterns in the Epic 85

Contingency 85

Action 88

Inner Time 89

Kpelle Performance in Liberia 89

The Island of Lamu, East Africa 89

The Shona of Southern Africa 90

The Spiritual World 90

The Larger Process 91

Life History 92

Time in Local Life 93

Balancing the Qualitative and Quantitative 93

6. Surveying the Trip: Cutting the Edge 95

Central Themes 95.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 102-107), glossary and index.

ISBN:

0195144996

0195145003

OCLC:

53932725