An African Understanding of African MusicAgawu, V. Kofi (Victor Kofi)

Research in African Literatures, Volume 32, Number 2, Summer 2001,pp. 187-194 (Article)

Published by Indiana University PressDOI: 10.1353/ral.2001.0038

For additional information about this article

Access Provided by Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz at 03/01/13 12:51PM GMT

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ral/summary/v032/32.2agawu03.html

REVIEW ESSAY

An African Understanding of African Music

Kofi Agawu

BOOKS DISCUSSEDUkom: A Study of African Music Craftsmanship, by Joshua Uzoigwe.Okigwe, Nigeria: Fasmen Educational and Research Publications, 1998.161 pp.

African Music: Theoretical Content and Creative Continuum: The CultureExponents Definitions, by Meki Nzewi. Oldershausen, Germany: Institutfr Didaktik populrer Musik. 84 pp.

Joshua Uzoigwe and Meki Nzewi are distinguished African musiciansfrom Nigeria. A trained ethnomusicologist, pianist, and drummer,Uzoigwe is widely regarded as a leading exponent of art music in Nigeria. This study of ukom originated in a PhD thesis presented to the

Queens University of Belfast, and is his most extended ethnomusicologi-cal publication to date. Nzewi is a multitalented artist and intellectual.Composer, master drummer, dramatist, choreographer, and ethnomusi-cologist, he is also active as a creative writer. Specialists will know his writ-ings on the Igbo varieties of African music, and will be aware of theimportant reorientation represented by his concept of melorhythm, a termdesigned to sensitize users to the melodic and rhythmic aspects of drum-ming and to undermine Western overemphasis on the percussive or non-pitched aspects (Melorhythm Essence and Hot Rhythm in Nigerian FolkMusic). This new book is neither his most ambitious nor his most exten-sive (there are pedagogical works awaiting publication, an earlier volumeon musical practice and creativity, and another on Ese musicsee list ofpublications on p. 94 of the present work). Nevertheless, it represents hismost direct, comprehensive, and provocative statement about Africanmusic scholarship and creativity.

Providing joint notice of these publications in this journal should notimply the existence of deeper parallels. It is true that both musicians stud-ied with the legendary John Blacking in Belfast, that they have made theirprofessional careers on the African continent, and that, like others in var-ious African universities, they have had to wear many hats in order to meetlocal demands for training students in music. There is a less elevated rea-son for this joint notice, however. Uzoigwes book, published in Nigeria,would have remained unknown in North America had the author notbrought copies of it himself to a 1999 conference in the USA. Nzewisbook, published in Germany, is available to a handful of scholars who havebeen lucky to receive personal copies from the author. None of the officialethnomusicological channels has given notice to these books. To say this is

Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 2001

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 187

not to insinuate a conspiracy against African voices in ethnomusicologyalthough, reading Nzewis preface, one cannot help but entertain such asuspicionbut to remind us of practical difficulties in the disseminationof knowledge produced in Africa. Yet, as I hope this review will make clear,both authors have facts and opinions that should command our attention.And their ways of proceeding should engender reflection on the situated-ness of our own scholarly agendas. There is no greater threat to the lifeand vitality of African music scholarship than the universalizing of NorthAmerican concerns and habits of thought.

Ukom, the subject of Uzoigwes book, is a type of instrumental (asopposed to vocal) music performed in certain Igbo communities. A typi-cal ukom ensemble consists of a set of ten tuned drums played by twomaster musicians, a leader and a receiver. Two other drums, a membranedrum whose function is to establish the pulse and a slit drum that serves ametronomic function, complete the four-person ensemble. Although it isperformed by men, ukom music is associated primarily with okwukwunwanyi womens funeral ceremony. Each phase of this highly ritualized riteis marked or constituted by music.

Chapter 2 outlines the musical and extramusical factors that constraincreativity. Noteworthy here is the distinction between nkwa, which refers tothe structured sound phenomenon, and egwu, a generic name for all artis-tic human endeavors such as recreation, music, story-telling, and drama(18). The existence of the former term suggests that musics materiality isnot unacknowledged in indigenous metalanguages, while the latter termindicates musics irretrievable connectedness. Also of interest is the princi-ple of union of opposites (42) that Uzoigwe finds at the heart of ensem-ble music. Throughout this second chapter, Uzoigwe is guided by theteaching of his ukom musician-mentors and makes intelligent use of their words.

Chapter 3 takes us to the heart of the music itself, explaining scalestructure and concepts of harmony. Ukom drums are tuned to two similarfive-note scales, EGACD and EGABC in adjacent octaves. Pentatonicism inturn provides the conditions of possibility for various vertical groupings,notably, thirds, fourths, and triads. Uzoigwes explanations or justificationsof procedure often include interesting perceptions. For example, tonaldistinctions are measured in terms of height and figured oppositionally asmale/female, the male being the higher sound, the female the lower one.Also, the idea that there is apparently no abstract understanding of octaveequivalence by ukom musicians suggests a degree of registral sensitivity notfound among musicians of traditions in which the octave rules.

Chapter 5, a companion to 3 (it could easily have taken the place ofthe current chapter 4), identifies variation as the central principle of musi-cal organization. Uzoigwe recognizes four main categories of variation:perpetual variation; limited variation; ostinato variation; and chainsongvariation. The first and last of these are illustrated by extended transcrip-tions. Brief comments on other aspects of ukom touch on rhythm, meter,and tempo. Between chapters 3 and 5, then, we obtain a solid introductionto the structural aspects of ukom repertoire.

188 Research in African Literatures

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 188

Chapter 4, entitled The Drumtext, explores the underlying textualconception through an assembly of texts associated with the three differ-ent compartments of ukom. This chapter is rich in texts and culturalanalysis. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a summary of the books findings. Thebibliography lists close to a hundred titles, but their relation to Uzoigwesproject is not always clear. The book lacks an index.

Three aspects of Uzoigwes work stand out to me. First, he is an instinc-tive theorist. No action is described for which a reason is not adduced. Inother words, why is a frequently asked question, not just what. Fromthis point of view, Uzoigwe justifies his initial claim that he intends thisbook to be a contribution to African music theory. Secondly, Uzoigweswhys often lead him to the social. There is clearly a strong influence ofhis mentor, Blacking, in this aspect of the work, for it was one of Blackingschief preoccupations to link the social with the musical (How Musical isMan?; see also Agawu, John Blacking and the Study of African Music).Uzoigwes own pursuit of this connection is, however, sanctioned by themusicians with whom he worked:

In the course of my musical apprenticeship with ukom musiciansI was struck by the manner in which they linked every aspect ofukom performance into a long chain of related ideas and events.That is, they had the tendency to illuminate their points on anyspecific topic of ukom composition, such as the textual implicationof a piece, by tracing the origin of its composition to its finalsource. Through this method of explanation the musicians wereable to reveal to me the several underlying social concepts whichoften determined peoples action and behavior towards oneanother in the Igbo community. And among the concepts whichthey emphasize most with regards to ukom, were those concerninglife and death. (38)

Some readers may wonder whether the exegetical pressure here is not a bit excessive, whether the embedding of ukom in webs of extramusical sig-nificance does not beg a number of questions. For as long as it assumesmusical form, ukom exhibits some degree of autonomy.

Uzoigwes resistance to autonomy comes across in some of his lesssecure statements, as for example his characterization of nineteenth- andtwentieth-century European composers as autonomous in contrast to hisukom musicians. Given the thoroughly interdisciplinary culture of nine-teenth-century Europe, a time when musicians read literature and philoso-phy, visited the opera house frequently, and consumed a range of criticism,it is difficult to support the designation autonomy for the musical prod-ucts of this era (see Subotnik, Romantic Music as Post-Kantian Critique).We need a more nuanced delineation of the social (as for example,Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, though it might be asking toomuch to expect Adornos writings to be available to our colleagues on thecontinent).

Third, there is a depth of understanding of Igbo culture here that israrely reached by outsiders studying Igbo music. Uzoigwe is alert to various

Kofi Agawu 189

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 189

shades of linguistic meaning, and he has drawn on the descriptions andevaluations of his mentors not in a heavy handed way, nor as an end initself, but on a flexible and ad hoc basis, to illuminate particular aspects ofmusic-making. With focused studies like this, the library of African musictheory is enriched.

Theory, broadly conceived, is also a central concern of Meki Nzewis,but where Uzoigwe focuses on a single genre of Igbo music, Nzewi rangeswidely, extending his discussion into a metatheoretical realm. His aim is toattain what might be called an African understanding of African music.Carrying out such an ambitious, ideologically explicit project requires thatexisting thought be critiqued. As usual with Nzewi, no one is above the law.Thus, Africanpoliticians come in for a certain amount of bashing. (In oneformulation, policy makers are said to be suffering from mental AIDS79). African intellectuals are accused of collaborating with politicians topromote mental-cultural despoliation of their own people through wrongeducational contents and orientation (12). Ethnomusicologists are criti-cized for introducing romance terms like cross rhythm, polyrhythm, andpolymeter into the theory of African music. Some composers of art musicare described as Africans writing modern music rather than as composersof modern African music. And performers who have lost touch with thespiritual and linguistic bases of singing and drumming are chastisedaccordingly. Only the so-called culture bearers, the traditional musicianswho make music and dance as part of daily life and ritual, are exempt fromthis sweeping critique.

The story of the origin of this booklet (as the author calls it) mayshed light on the vehemence of Nzewis position. Nzewi was invited topresent his ideas at a conference in Michigan in 1993 on NewDirectionsThe West African Voice in Ethnomusicology. Subsequentlyhis paper, alongside two others by Ghanaian scholars Kwabena Nketia andWillie Anku, was accepted for publication in the Black Music ResearchJournal. Inexplicably, however, the paper was withdrawn from publica-tion at the last minute. (Attendees at the April 2000 conference on Africanmusic held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will see that it is fast becoming Nzewisfate to be withdrawn from such events!) But he was determined to findan audience for his ideas, hence this booklet, which some German friendsand colleagues helped to publish.

This is not perhaps the place to discuss the politics of publication,although the subject ought to concern anyone who advocates ethicalscholarship. But Nzewis embattled tone, his pugnacious, no-nonsensestyle cannot be fully appreciated outside a context in which his ideas, someof them quite unconventionalor, at least, presented as if they wereunconventionalare said to have been systematically suppressed byunnamed senior colleagues. No doubt Nzewis song would change if hewere assured that there is, in fact, a community of scholars who share hisconcerns about the state of music education in Africa, who have indepen-dently arrived at similar viewpoints in their research into African materials,and who are as passionate as he is about forging an African understandingof African musicAfrican-thinking Africans, as he calls them (13). Or

190 Research in African Literatures

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 190

would it? It is possible that Nzewis song will not be much affected by suchassurances. In conceiving of himself as an articulate, modern, native actorin the traditional music arena in Africa [who has] the mandate of traditionto propagate the truth about the African musical-mental civilisation (14),Nzewi may find it impossible to proceed without erecting elaborate oppo-sitional forces against which he can then kick hard.

African Music: Theoretical Content and Creative Continuum is a book aboutknowledge construction, about the order of knowledge about Africanmusic. The orientation is not historicalwhich orientation may havehelped to clarify the origins of certain ideas and practices. Nor is it system-atic. Rather, Nzewi comes at his subject with a generalized set of presuppo-sitions, collapsing all knowledge into a single African music. Thosehardest hit by his critiquewho, incidentally, and despite the homogeniz-ing tendency of the text, will not have a hard time recognizing themselvesin itmay seek to oppose the project on the grounds that its citations areskimpy. But those who see the advantage of leaving out names (or rather,supplying the relevant names based on Nzewis not always obscure hints)will welcome this way of naming without naming. In the end, then, this isnot a book for people who are new to African music. It is rather a book for insiders, those who have followed trends in the construction of knowl-edge about African music and who are moved to reflect upon its politicsand ideology.

What has been said so far should indicate that no simple summary ofNzewis argument is possible. Still, there are several recurring themesamong which Id like to single out two. The first is the paradoxicalformulationagain strongly reminiscent of Blackingthat music is atonce imbricated in other semiotic systems while retaining a level of auton-omy in its material and ideational organization:

[T]he philosophical foundations of the African musical environ-ment and phonofacts are not always music-specific. Deriving froma more holistic philosophy of life and the cosmos, autochthonousAfrican musical productions are abstract configurations whichdemonstrate the fairly common fundamental creative principle ofmediating the physical and metaphysical worlds. (13)

In technical terms, this translates in part as follows:

The same principles and rationalisations of repetition, syncopa-tion, relational tension, complementarity and lineal circularity aregiven synaesthetic manifestations in music, dance, visual arts anddramatic theatre. (14)

The implied coherence of the Igbo notion of egwu at a deep conceptuallevel, this coincidence of backgrounds, is sometimes remarked, but fewscholars have pursued the implications of that insight into specific materi-als (a magnificent exception, not mentioned by Nzewi, is Robert FarrisThompsons Flash of Spirit).

Nzewi draws on the nonmusical origins of musical gestures to reposi-tion a number of ethnomusicologys concepts. In the third chapter,

Kofi Agawu 191

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 191

Theoretical Content, to my mind the richest in the book, he argues thatcross rhythm, polymeter, and polyrhythm are not tenable as descriptions ofAfrican rhythmic practice. This is a radical claim, one that will likely beresisted (at least initially) by those for whom the self-evident complexityand unparalleled elaboration of rhythm in African music justify the use ofsuch terms. Cross-rhythm, according to Nzewi,

is antithetical to African social and, therefore, ensemble philoso-phy. A community/family/team does not work together at crosspurposes. This musical structure, which has depth essence, derivesfrom the African philosophy of inter dependence in humanrelationships. (36)

He goes on to provide an analogy with visual art, citing paint-drawing pat-terns on mud walls said to be typical of Helen Obiora and other Igboartists, and explaining that

[m]otive as well as emotive suspense is generated when two movingentities which are at the point of colliding with each other unex-pectedly veer off. A bounce-off affect is generated. The entities inmissed-collision retain their individuality as well as motive or emo-tive energies/directions. (37, 39)

In this way we understand cross rhythm as a musical manifestation of a deeper societal impulse, expressible not only aurally but visually andverbally.

There is a danger in this kind of exercise, however, for although itdoes not deny the nontranslatability of semiotic systems, it encourages afuzzy equating of deep structures, a facile postulation of homologies, andperhaps an impoverished construal of the nature of primal impulses. Anexample of such associationism may be found in Peter Bischoffs filmAfrican Cross Rhythm as Seen Through Ghanaian Music, where John Collinsannounces that African music is multidimensional [. . .]. Africans gener-ally do things in multiples. [. . .T]hey are polytheistic, they have many godsand goddesses, they speak many languages, have multiple wives. Thuspolytheism, polyglottism, and polygamy are drawn into a circle alongsidepolymeter, polyrhythm, polyphony, etc., all of them ostensibly springingfrom the same source.

Can such claims be formulated so as to yield genuine insight? Withoutsecure ethnographic characterization, without precise definitions, andwithout some skepticism towards the impulse to mystify African musicalrealities, it is difficult to see how we can associate polymeter and polygamy,say. The very desire to plot such deep-level convergences needs to be inter-rogated. Perhaps what obtains in Africa, as indeed elsewhere, is an inci-dence of divided, tension-filled deep structures devoid of any invariantexpressivity.

A second, related theme stems from Nzewis belief in the self-suffi-ciency of African music as system:

African traditional music contains all that are needed in philoso-phy, theoretical content and principles of practice for culturally

192 Research in African Literatures

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 192

meaningful and independent modern music education of anydisciplinary specialisation at any level in Africa and perhaps,elsewhere. (11)

This claim speaks to Nzewis concerns about the great musical miseduca-tion of modern Africans. Limited acquaintance with notational systems,the privileging of pitch as a parameter, the confinement of harmonicthought to that which can be accommodated within a Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass texture, the teaching of composition without a concomitant stress onthe composers social mission, the shunning of traditional instruments:these are among the shortcomings of modern music education in Africa.We need to sweep away the half truths about African (and European)music and initiate a new beginning that is rooted in adequate (i. e., Africa-centered) cultural understanding of performance, composition andtheory. We are yet to see a systematic and aggressive assault on the falsifi-cation of traditional African ways of teaching and understanding in ouruniversities. Perhaps readers of Nzewis book will be moved to begin thischallenging task.

Nzewi, then, is concerned with theory as well as practice. He does notpreach in the abstract but provides concrete suggestions in his final chap-ter about how to reorient performance, composition and scholarship. Thebook as a whole includes a number of interesting ideas, ideas that shouldstimulate debate among musicologists. For example, like A. M. Jones andothers before him, Nzewi maintains the unity of traditional African music:Incontrovertibly, there is an African field of musical sound (31). He thusquestions the contemporary tendency to stress heterogeneity over homo-geneity, to speak of African musics rather than African music.Elsewhere, Nzewi notes that the bell pattern of West African ensemblemusic, popularly referred to as a time line, is no more than a phrasingreferent (35). It provides a statistical measure in ensemble music but isnot the structural fundamental (35). Again, on the question of form,Nzewi identifies the philosophical motivation for form creation in Africanmusic as a circular futurity (43). He even ventures into essentialist con-structions of European, African, and American personhood in order tocelebrate the humaneness of African musical practices (61).

Students of cultural studies and postcolonial theory may well find thatthe kinds of issues broached by Meki Nzewi occupy a by now unmarkedposition in their own discourses. Their relative markedness in Africanmusicology is due to a long-standing reticence among scholars to confrontone anothers theories and viewpoints (see Agawu, Representing AfricanMusic). Put more strongly, African musicology, as currently constituted,lacks a communal critical practice. (Scherzingers Musical Formalism asRadical Political Critique, however, signals a reversal.) While it is in theinterest of show-and-tell ethnomusicologists to keep things that way, it isnot in the interest of African scholars. The two books reviewed here areworthwhile contributions to debate about, and enhanced understandingof, Africas extraordinarily rich musical heritage.

Kofi Agawu 193

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 193

WORKS CITED

Adorno, Theodor. Introduction to the Sociology of Music. 1962. Trans. E. B. Ashton.New York: Seabury, 1976.

Agawu, Kofi. Representing African Music. Critical Inquiry 18.2 (1992): 245-66.Blacking, John. How Musical Is Man? Seattle: U of Washington P, 1973.Bischoff, Peter. African Cross RhythmsAs Seen through Ghanaian Music. VHS

Format. 52 minutes. Denmark: Loke Film, 1994.Nzewi, Meki. Melorhythm Essence and Hot Rhythm in Nigerian Folk Music. The

Black Perspective in Music 2.1 (1974): 23-28.Scherzinger, Martin Rudolf. Musical Formalism as Radical Political Critique: From

European Modernism to African Spirit Possession. Diss. Columbia U, 2000.Subotnik, Rose Rosengard. Romantic Music as Post-Kantian Critique: Classicism,

Romanticism, and the concept of the Semiotic Universe. On Criticizing Music:Five Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. Kinsley Price. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP,1981. 87-95.

Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art andPhilosophy. New York: Vintage , 1987.

194 Research in African Literatures

M-Essay 3/8/01 11:29 PM Page 194