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African Negro Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

The purport of this article is to provide an answer to the following questions:

1. What is African music like as compared to our own?

2. How can it be made use of in Church and School?

The answer might be as brief as the questions:

1. African and (modern) European music are constructed on entirely different principles, and therefore

2. they cannot be fused into one, but only the one or the other can be used without compromise.

The attention of most of my readers will only be engaged by the second of these points as being one of practical interest, while the first is of a more theoretical nature. But my second answer being only a conclusion drawn from my first one, I shall have to support it by entering on some theoretical detail; it will not, therefore, be possible to keep altogether clear of musical technicalities. Readers who feel alarmed at the idea of having to find their way through analyses of this kind, or to read music, may safely confine their attention to the last section; as for the preceding ones, they will, it is hoped, be indulgent towards the author, granting him that it would be difficult to state a thing without speaking of it.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1928

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References

page 31 note 1 The phonograph was invented by Edison in 1877. It was used in ethnological field-work in 1891 by W. Fewkes who worked with Zũni-Indians; these records were transcribed by Gilman, B. J. (Journ. Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol., i, 1891).Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 Phonographic outfits in boxes for tropical use can be had on hire from the Berliner Phonogramm Archiv, Schloss, Berlin C 2, or bought from the Photossentrale Wira G. m. b. H., Karlstr. 33, Berlin N.W. 6, for 200-300 marks.

page 32 note 1 Cf. Pöch, R., Sitzungsber. d. Wiener Akad. d. Wiss., Matbem.-naturw. Kl., Abt. II, 126, 3, 1917.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Melos; 1921, Heft 9 (‘Musikal. Exotismus’).

page 33 note 1 Stumpf, C., Anfänge der Musik, Leipzig, 1911, S. 69 ff.Google Scholar

page 33 note 2 ‘Phonogr. Methoden’, Abderbaldens Handb. d. biolog. Arbeitsmethoden, 1923.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Gilman, B. F., Journ. of Amer. Archaeol., v, 1908Google Scholar; Jabrb. d. Musikbibl. Peters, 19, 1913.Google Scholar

page 35 note 2 Abraham, O., Psycholog. Forschung, 4, I, 1923CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Handb. d. Physik, hrsg. v. Geiger u. Scheel, Bd. 8, Kap. 9.

page 35 note 3 Abraham, O. u. Hornbostel, E. M. v., Ztschr.f. Psychol., 98, 233, 1925.Google Scholar

page 35 note 4 Handbuch d. Physiol., hrsg. v. Bethe u. a., Bd. II, 714, 1926.

page 39 note 1 Czekanowski, Wiss. Ergebnisse d. D. Zentr.-Afrika-Exped., 1907-8, VII, 379 ff., Leipzig, 1918.

page 41 note 1 Anthropos, iv. 781 ff., 1909, Ex. I.

page 41 note 2 Bull, de I'Acad. d. Sciences de Cracovie, Sc. nat., 1910, 711 ff.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 The texts of the songs registered by the missionary Herr Bachmann have been identified from the records by a native catechist. The help of a Native is the only way of obtaining the words and adjusting them to the tunes after the original performance. The texts have been examined and translated by Professor Dr. B. Struck.

page 45 note 1 In Czekanowski, I.c., No. 17.

page 45 note 2 In another version of the same song (Czekanowski, No. 3) it is left to the solo.

page 46 note 1 Lachmann, R., Ber. über d. Musikwiss. Kongress, Wien, 1927.Google Scholar

page 48 note 1 Handb. der Piystk, hrsg. v. Geiger & Scheel, Bd. 8, Kap. 9.

page 49 note 1 Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., 43, 601, 1911.Google Scholar

page 55 note 1 Examples from Togo in Schönhärl, J., Volkskundliches aus Togo, Dresden und Leipzig (Koch), 1909.Google Scholar

page 56 note 1 Stumpf, C., Zeitschr. f. Psychol, 94, 1, 1923.Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 Translation according to Meinhof.

page 57 note 1 Cf. also Father Schmidt, W., Anthropos, i. 70, 1906.Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 Internat. Review of Missions, 15, 748, 1926.Google Scholar

page 61 note 2 A negro brass band instituted by the German missionaries at Usambara and left to themselves during the war added to their repertoire European street songs which the negro conductor had picked up from an Indian merchant's gramophone records (in D. ev. Missions-Kalender, 1928, pp. 104 ff.).Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 Meinhof, C., D. Dichtung d. Afrikaner, 109 f., Berlin, 1910.Google Scholar

page 62 note 1 This is what Th. Rühl, S.V.D., is thinking of in his noteworthy paper, ‘Die missionarische Akkommodation’, Zeitschriftf. Missionsrviss., 17, 113 ff., 1927.Google Scholar

page 62 note 2 This has been tried repeatedly and successfully, see Rühl, I.e., 123.

page 62 note 3 The question whether these three essential elements are admissible in Roman Catholic rites is discussed by Rühl, l.c., 125.