MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

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MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

• COURSE STRUCTURE
• INTRODUCTION
• August 26 Introduction
• August 31 South Africa An Overview
• September 2 Graceland and the End of Apartheid
• AN AFRICAN COUNTRY?
• September 7 Musical Bows and Overtones
• September 9 Speech Tones
• September 14 Musical Process

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MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

• COURSE STRUCTURE
• A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY?
• September 16 Ntsikanas Great Hymn
• September 21 Gods Own Country Orpheus McAdoo
  and the African American Influence
• September 23 Isaiah Shembe and the
  Re-Africanization of Christianity
• A CAPITALIST COUNTRY?
• September 28 Maskanda - Making African Music on
  Western Instruments
• September 30 Travellers Basotho Migrant
  Laborers Lifela
• October 5 Singing Brings Joy to the Distressed
  - Zulu Migrant Workers Choirs
• October 7 Mbube

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MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

• COURSE STRUCTURE
• October 12 Prep. Exam
• October 14 Mid-term Exam
• October 19 Discussion of Exam Results

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MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

• COURSE STRUCTURE
• A MODERN/URBAN COUNTRY?
• October 21 The Ambiguities of Modernity
  R.T.Caluza and Early African Nationalism
• October 26 Urban Control Ingoma and Gumboot
• October 28 Apartheid Media
• November 2 From Marabi to Mbaqanga
• November 9 Apartheid and Ethnicity - Mbaqanga
• November 11 Black Harlem at the Cape - Jazz
• November 16 The Black Atlantic - The Politics of
  Race in a Global Age

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MUSIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

• COURSE STRUCTURE
• November 23 Preparation of Mock Exam
• November 30 Discussion of Mock Exam
• December 2 Final Exam

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3. Musical Bows and Overtones

• Categories of bows
• Production of fundamentals
• Production of overtones

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3. Musical Bows and Overtonesugubhu, uhadi

• Production of fundamentals

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3. Musical Bows and Overtonesugubhu, uhadi

• Production of overtones

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3. Musical Bows and Overtonesugubhu, uhadi

• Selective amplification of harmonics
• Tentative findings so far suggest that, in
  playing the ugubhu, the amplitude of partials 5
  and 4 is redeuced, progressively, the more the
  mouth of the calabash resonator is covered,
  through proximity to the players body. If one
  thereotically takes C as the stopped
  fundamental, closing the resonator,
  progressively, gives the impression of lowering
  the top note of the chord from e (5th partial)
  down to c and then g (4th and 3rd partials),
  and finally c (2nd partial). With B as the
  corresponding unstopped fundamental, the sequence
  d, b, f, B is produced. These harmonics are
  used selectively by the player to provide
  something in the nature of a simple ostinato
  melody, below the vocal line.
• (from D.Rycroft, The Zulu Bow Songs of Princess
  Magogo)

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4. Speech Tones
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4. Speech Tones

• Conformity of pitch and prosody
• Princess Magogo
• Ngibambeni, ngibambeni

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4. Speech Tones

• Stylized speech contours
• Izaga (war-cry)
• Example from my Zululand tapes, or AMA TR 9-10

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4. Speech Tones

• Pseudo-melodic features in izibongo (heroic
  poetry)
• James Stewart
• Izibongo zikaShaka

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4. Speech Tones

• Effects of speech rhythm (syllable elision and
  length distortion)

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5. Musical Process

• Cyclic form/repetition
• We Majola

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5. Musical Process

• Root progression
• Analyzing Venda ocarina music and childrens
  songs, ethnomusicologist John Blacking found a
  lack of points of rest that resulted from
  harmonic progressions or tonality shifts
  between a chord that may be called a tonal
  center and a second chord a whole-tone above
  or below it. But these tonality shifts, according
  to Blacking, cannot be said to be in any way
  related to Western principles. The roots of
  these chords are not equivalent to the function
  of the Tonic, Subdominant or Dominant, but are
  chosen from the range of acceptable pitches for
  any given combination of intervals, usually
  fifths and fourths. Thus, to Western ears, many
  such chords have the effect of a second
  inversion and therefore provide only a
  temporary point of rest, and the music is always
  thrust on to the next point of tension. In
  African terms, the movement and form-giving
  function of chords is not determined by such
  things as the root position of the Tonic, but by
  the decrease and increase of tonal power of
  shifting tonalities.