Tonal Organization in the Music of Two Venda Initiation Schools

Abstract

As a working hypothesis, it has been assumed that Venda music is systematic and logically organized, but not necessarily like any other musical system. Some sound patterns may superficially resemble those of other music and could therefore be compared with them; but if similar sounds are found to be the product of different processes, comparison is invalid and misleading. It is for this reason that I have argued elsewhere that interval counts, weighted scales, and other analytical tools of ethnomusicology are not as objective as they seem (Blacking 1967:192-94, and 1970). They implicitly assign to sounds an absolute meaning and assume that the same musical patterns are the same in all contexts: as if see and sea were identical in English and even meant the same in other languages. Maximum objectivity can be achieved only if the tones of a melody are understood in the contexts of first that particular melody; secondly, the class of melodies to which it is said to belong by its composer and/or performers; and thirdly, the musical tradition to which it belongs. For instance, in some contexts what sounds like a rising fourth may really be a falling fifth, transformed because of limitations of vocal or instrumental range. Venda music will probably be misunderstood if it is compared with other styles of music before it is analyzed as a symbolic expression of aspects of Venda culture. I am concerned, therefore, not so much with classification and comparison as with generalizations about the processes which the Venda use to produce musical sound. It is at this level of analysis, which linguists call the deep structure, that one may expect to find the Venda using techniques that are employed in other cultures and perhaps even in all music-making. When in 1965 I showed how certain Venda children's songs are transformations of the music of the Venda national dance (Blacking 1967), I had