African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective

Abstract

African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective. By Kofi Agawu. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. [xx, 217 p. and 1 compact disc. ISBN 0-521-48084-1. $64.95.] Kofi Agawu's stimulating and provocative book African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective, presents a model of rhythm in northern Ewe (Ewedome) music from seven Ghanaian towns--Peki, Matse, Ziavi, Klefe, Avenut, Kpando, and Ho--and in music of their Akpafu neighbors. Juxtaposed with a fictionalized ethnography, model appears at end of chapter 1, Rhythms of Society, and argues that primordial, originary, rhythmic event is gesture. It lies at base of four other aspects of rhythmic expression, each generated by preceding one: (1) spoken word, having tone and rhythm: (2) vocal music in free and strict rhythm, as is case with speech and stylized speech; (3) instrumental music, embracing drum language in speech rhythm and dance music in stylized speech rhythm; and (4) dance. In subsequent chapters--Rhythms of Language, Rhythms of Song, Rhythms of Drumming and Dancing, Rhythms of Musical Performance,--Rhythms of Folktale Performance--Agawu's attempts to demonstrate model are subverted by claims of a purely musical impulse, rhythm for rhythm's sake (p. 106), purely musical thinking lacking constraints of speech-tone patterns (p. 176), nonverbal descending melodic line as originary musical element (p. 181), and processual factors, some of which he acknowledges (pp. 182, 183, 184), and others that will he clear to reader. Agawu defines rhythm as stress, quantity and resultant pattern (p. 34) and, by starting with speech acts in chapter 2, gives careful attention to lone levels and accentual schemes embedded in greetings, announcements, riddles, and prayers. This is a strength of book, along with its exposition of musical categories that Ewedome and Akpafu share with other Ghanaian musical cultures. Among these categories is music for funerals, children, occupational groups, religious practices, recreation, and storytelling. Each adds new information of comparative value, which is enhanced by accompanying nineteen photographs and compact disc. Agawu emphasizes, however, that book was not conceived to be a contribution to ethnomusicology (p. 3). In chapter 3 Agawu describes his analytical stance: The particular generative musical structure developed here, draws on work of Heinrich Schenker (p. 201). This frame of reference, along with other tools from music theory, enable him to show ways in which recurring patterns of Northern Ewe music are like rhythmic modes of medieval Europe (p. 34), and how parts of funeral dirge are sung in a Schoenbergian Sprechstimme (p. 77), performer highlighting transformation of recitative into aria (p. 83, see also p. 171). Upon examination of Ziavi Zigi group in performance, Agawu asserts in chapter 5, that the strophic impulse is everywhere in evidence (p. …