The Role of Percussion
in West African Societies
Excerpts
from Renzo Spiteri's B.A. (Hons.) (Music Studies) dissertation presented to the
University of Malta in 1997
The
Role of Music in West Africa
__________________________
from the "Preface"
There are few areas of the world that match the range and musical textures of West Africa. The region consists of fifteen countries, everyone of which having various tribes.
African music is an art that integrates strong traditional forms and improvisation. It is the musician's responsibility to extend from the music itself into the movement of its social setting. Music becomes important only in respect of the overall success of a social event.
from Chapter 1 - "An introduction to West African percussion instruments"
It is hardly necessary to stress
the importance of the drum in African music. The drum family can be
considered the most representative of African instruments. The drum is the
instrument that best expresses the inner feelings of African societies and
it is present in most social and religious activities, be it birth,
initiation ceremonies, marriages or funerals.
Every race inhabiting the vast territory of Africa has, or has had a drum of some kind during its history. This instrument has survived the influence of Western music and retains its dignified and unique position in contemporary life. It also retains much of its original purpose and form in multifarious shapes and sizes.
For the West African drummer (as for drummers in other regions of Africa) musical pitch for each drum beat is very important. When these musicians beat their drum, they play tunes. This fact goes, in strong contrast, against the incorrect fundamental Western notion that portrays these instruments solely as time-keepers.
Generally speaking, each musician
makes his own instrument to suit his own personal taste. Furthermore one
'teaches' his instrument to speak one's own mother language. For example,
the Malinke xylophone of Guinea does not possess the same notes as the
Bantu xylophone of the equatorial forest.
The earliest European travellers described drum-signals between villages as codes. In reality, the drums actually speak the language of the tribe. The voice of the drum is frequently employed to communicate some news or to send messages from one town to another. In his fascinating book African Rhythm and African Sensibility John Cherrioff recounts that:
During my first day practising with Gideon [a master-drummer], I was following him well until he suddenly performed a rather complicated series of rhythms and then went back to the basic rhythms he was showing me. A few minutes later a man who had passed at that moment returned with two bottles of beer.
African drums possess a vast range
of materials, shapes and uses. They epitomise the real definition of all
African music- a music that speaks in rhythms that dance. 'No genuine
African music is an exception to this definition ' insists Francis Bebey.
All this is justified by the ubiquitous presence of drums in African
music. And when the drum is not physically present, hand-clapping and
feet-stamping are common means that imitate the drum beat.
There are two distinct members in the African percussion family: tuned (Including xylophones and pitched drums) and untuned (including log-drums, slit-drums and lithophones).
The djeme (or djembe) is
another drum which is extremely popular not only among the Bamana tribe,
but it is integral also to the families of the Baga, Bambara, Mandeng and
the Malinke cultures, to name a few. Tradition has it that it originated
among the Bambara of Guinea and dates at least to 500 A.D. It is curved
from a tree trunk into a shape like a vase, wider at the top and narrower
at the bottom, its head made ftom goatskin. In principle, this drum has
three fundamental tones which take quite a while to be produced properly.
The body of the djeme is hollow and the bottom is open. Therefore it
should never be blocked by placing it flat on the ground since this
muffles the sound of the drum. In fact the djeme is usually suspended from
two straps, one around each shoulder of the musician. This also enables
the musician to move around and dance while he is playing.
In West Africa the djeme player is very particular about his drum. Often he will negotiate with the woodcarver, who will make the drum body for him, to be sure it suits his needs. The drummer may even go with the woodcarver to select the precise tree from which the djeme is to be fashioned. Like the bafoko, the djeme is a hand drum and no sticks or other tools are used in playing it. This drum continues to be an important and popular drum in West Africa and can be heard in the present day countries of Mall, Guinea, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Burkina Faso. It is often played in work music but African drum masters refer to it also as the "Magical Drum" because of its power to move people and as the "Healing Drum" because of its long history as a fundamental tool in African healing traditions.
from Chapter 2 - "The Music and its Social Setting"
The Role of Music in West Africa
When we try to understand the music of a different culture or historic period, we must be prepared to open our minds, not only to the certainty that people will have different standards for judging musical qualities, but also to the possibility that they may have an entirely different conception of what music itself is.
We traditionally think of music as an expression of emotions. Actually, music is too abstract to be capable of rendering truly life-like descriptions but our ears and minds are trained to seek certain signs. For example the existence of certain preconceived ideas which might bring about discomfort in understanding music based on totally different premises.
Another point not to be over-looked is that, in the West, music is considered as a pure art form. People buy compact discs, records and tapes and go to concerts to enjoy music. In most films and plays, music is used to accompany the action and not forming an integral part of the work. The same goes with opera, the first true marriage between music and theatre- the former can be divorced from the other and still be enjoyed for its own sake.
The musical concepts of Africans are totally different. One should bear in mind that African musicians do not seek to combine sounds that are pleasing to the ear. Their aim is simply to express life, in all its aspects through the medium of sound. And being surrounded by natural sounds, the African musician takes these sounds and incorporates them into his music. Hence the use and importance of such musical instruments made out of the bark of a tree or a dried calabash. John Chernoff suggests that:
For a Westerner to understand the artistry and purpose of an African musical event, it is necessary for him to sidestep his normal listening tendencies, slow down his aesthetic response, and glide past his initial judgement. The reason why it is mistaken "to listen" to African music is that African music is not set apart from its social and cultural context.
In fact, if we had to take the example of some ritual involving masked dancers, a Western observer might wonder if sculpture, dance, music or drama was the dominant art, and if he could understand the drum language, or understand the words of the song, he might have to consider poetry as well. To these notions of musical and cultural integration, one might add the simple fact of the sheer amount of musical activity in African cultures. There are very few important things which happen without music and the range and diversity of specific kinds of music is astounding. The central point remains that, compared to Western societies, African societies have many more people who participate in making music, and they do so within specific groups and specific situations.
Be it in celebrating a new born, the marriage of a new couple or the initiation ceremonies for a group of youngsters, one will find the beating of a particular drum or drums and this is why we find such a rich 'repertoire' of drurn music in West Africa. The drum will beat the rhythms fitting to the particular occasion and the repertoire itself manifests a concern to develop a means of recognising the important moments of an individual's life and referring them to a common tradition. So music lends itself and is strongly linked to myth, proverbs and folklore. As a group activity, all these qualities are brought out and communicated within the group members, giving them a sense of belonging within the particular group. Like language, kinship or occupation, music helps people to distinguish themselves from each other. Kwabena Nketia, one of the leading African musicologists has written:
A village that has no organised music or neglects community singing, drumming or dancing is said to be dead.
In many West African cultures, like in many other parts of the continent, drummers are also the acknowledged authorities on history and myth. There is quite a fair percentage of such musicians who live solely by their art and belong to certain families or castes. The music is transmitted from one generation to the next, and so is all the wisdom teachings, history and myth that go together with the music. These particular musicians are known as griot throughout West Africa.
These people are more concerned with the past then with the future. The past does not imply only to the history of one's own people- its kings and ancestors, and the genealogy of its great people- but also the wisdom of its philosophers, its corporate ethics and generosity of the spirits and ancestral proverbs.
The West African griot can be seen
as the equivalent of the medieval troubadour and he, too, is sometimes
attached to the 'courts' of the chief of a particular village. But, above
all, the griot is a musician without whom no ritual or celebration would
be complete. This, of course, on the other hand means that a lot is
expected from a performer such as a griot. Earlier, in the great West
African centralised kingdoms like Dahomey, Benin and Ashanti, if a drummer
made a mistake when drumming the names of the chiefs lineage, it could be
capital offence. In Africa, it is a drum and not a scepter which is the
symbol of the king and the voice of the ancestors. Among the Dagombas, a
chief will not go anywhere unless he is accompanied by a drummer to
signify his status.
African music is not abstracted
from its social setting as an "art form" - it is directly
integrated into social activities.
One of the most noticeable features of African culture is that many activities - paddling a canoe, chopping a tree, pounding grain, smashing up the yams for dinner or simply moving- seems set within a rhythmic framework which can and often does serve as the basis for music and songs. In many of such cases it is not just a matter of a voice, or group of voices that pick up the tempo transmitted by the particular activity (like pounding grain) and singing to the pulse. The people involved will, most surely go against this pulse, thus creating the polyrhythmic effect so familiar in African musical situations.
We can elaborate a bit further on this fact. Let us assume that there are three women pounding grain, in a hollowed fat trunk of a tree with their heavy sticks. The three of them will surely sing in unison some song that will accompany their activity, but their pounding, which most certainly develops into an ostinato, three-layered pattern, will create the polyrhythmic effect.
This brings to the forefront the important fact that in African music there are always at least two rhythms going on. Arnold M. Jones writes that:
Rhythm is to the African what harmony is to the Europeans, and it is in the complex interweaving of contrasting rhythmic patterns that he finds his greatest aesthetic satisfaction.
The same author goes on to explain that if from childhood one is brought up regarding beating 3 against 2 as just as normal as beating in synchrony, then one is apt to develop a two-dimensional attitude to rhythm which we in the West do not share.
from the "Conclusion"
African Music goes well beyond the realm of art. What is so fascinating is that, in these modem times, this music still manages to retain intact those functions that have given African societies their own particular character. This fact is a great asset, a precious matter that Westerners have turned their minds to, to expand their knowledge in arts, to widen their own musical idiom and to add new flavour to Western music.
All this should not distract us from the real meaning and function of the music that these societies play. These people rely on the drummer to beat the music on his drum to maintain the happiness and vitality of their social sphere. In our insight on the relationship between percussion and West African societies (and this applies to the rest of the continent too), we can see that music helps people to work, to enjoy themselves, to praise a good man and control a bad one, to recite history, poetry, proverbs, to celebrate births, festivals or funerals, to compete with each other, to encounter their gods, to grow up, and, fundamentally to be sociable in whatever they do.
All these elements provide a continuity in traditional values backed by a remarkable culture. We have given a brief outline, in this writing, of a people who are great lovers of music, who still believe that the drum can express their most inner feelings, who still hold to the richness of their musical heritage. These societies have had the wisdom to give proper respect to musicians and to let music keep on flowing inside them and play a profound role in their lives. This is what makes African music so beautiful, this is the source of happiness for the African. Music can be seen as an art that has been elevated to become the necessary compliment to the important stages of a life and the important events of a community. The reality of this achievement is something that African societies experience all the time.© Renzo Spiteri - May 1997
