Africa-Folk Music Atlas

Abstract

Edited by Leonardo D'Amico and Francesco Mizzau. (World Atlas, 1.) Firenze: Amharsi, 1996. Book, CD-ROM for IBM PC and compatibles, 3 audio CDs. Requires PC 486 DX2, 66MHz or better preferred; double-speed CD-ROM, 8 MB of RAM, 4 MB free space on hard disk, SVGA 16-bit video card and color monitor, Sound Blaster or compatible sound card, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The Africa - Folk Atlas CD-ROM package comes complete with a ninety-six-page book, three audio CDs, and one CDROM. The CD-ROM contains 603.5 MB of data for eighty-eight items, and it was created 3 January 1997. Apparently the user is expected to read the entire book before installing the CD-ROM, since the installation instructions are not given until page ninety of the book. Installation, however, is straightforward, and no one but a novice would need coaching. On the same page, however, the authors claim: This work is intended for everyone, enthusiasts of all musical genres, teachers, families, students and anyone who wants to adventure into the complex and fascinating world of African music-culture. With such a diverse target audience, some sort of guidelines for installation and use at the very beginning of the book, or in an accompanying pamphlet, would seem to be in order. The reviewer used a Gateway 2000 with a 300 MHz Pentium II processor, 64MB RAM, and a DVD II drive, running Windows 95. With this configuration, access to even the large image files on the CD-ROM was virtually instantaneous. The application has its own volume slider in addition to the audio slider in the Windows 95 task-bar. The ReadMe file is unnecessarily technical, and it actually provides little useful information except possibly the identity of the files (for example, PVEZW32D.DLL) that are installed to the hard drive during a full installation process. Clicking on the install icon shown on the opening screen displays a dialog box that gives the user the option of installing in either English or Italian and for maximum (3 MB disk space) or reduced (1 MB disk space) performance. The audio files have been compressed on the CD-ROM, and the installation of the on-board audio decompression drivers is recommended. The opening screen provides six traversal options (similar to the organization of the book): Ethnohistory, Music of the African Peoples, Vocality, Musical Instruments, New African Music, and a globe with a red question mark for help in the lower right-hand corner that adds next- and previous-screen arrows as one begins to explore the program. Moving the pointer over that part of the African continent on the left side of the screen brings up a new option, Acknowledgments and credits, and on the right side of the screen, Bibliography and discography. The bibliography is similar to the one printed on page ninety-one of the book, although a few new items not listed in the book are found in the CD-ROM version, including a filmography (only six items listed!), and a discography with very incomplete entries, organized by country. Why more-complete entries were not provided here is baffling; the discography is essentially useless in its present form. Also, few, if any, of the earlier and often more authentic LP recordings are listed, the focus being on more recent CDs, many of questionable authenticity. The user can print the bibliography, filmography, and discography directly from the screen. There are no instructions, however, for returning to the main menu at the end of the bibliography. (The user experiments and eventually finds that a highlighted triangle above the right-hand corner globe returns to the opening menu.) The Acknowledgments and credits essentially replicate those in the book on page 95, with one or two added items. The opening flute soundtrack (Wele flute played by Gabin Dabire, Burkina Faso, which is also used as the soundtrack for the Music of the African Peoples, North Africa section of the CD-ROM text) continues to play ad nauseam with no instruction given on how to turn it off. …