African music

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In Search of Time in African Music Author(s): Ruth M. Stone Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 7, Time and Rhythm in Music (Spring, 1985), pp. 139-148Published by: {oupl} on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/745884Accessed: 15-04-2015 17:20 UTC

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In Search of Time in African Music

Ruth M. Stone

Time, as manifest in musical rhythm, has riveted the attention of several generations of inquiring ethnomusicologists, comparative musicologists, and before them travelers of many sorts. Father Denis de Carli on a journey through the Congo in 1666-67 remarked, "This harmony is grateful at a distance, but harsh and ungrateful near at hand, the beating of so many Sticks causing a great Confusion."' Though Father de Carli may not have admired the rhythm, other sojourners were more appreciative. One explorer noted that the Bushman "sings while he dances, swaying his body about in strict time with the music."2 Another said of the Kafir, Their notion of melody is very slight, while their time is perfection itself, and the very fact that several hundred men will sing the various war songs as if they were animated by a single spirit shows that they must all keep the most exact time.3

Today we recognize great variety in African musics. We also stress here those musics without predominance of Arabic and Islamic influences.

The search for what makes African rhythm beat has moved on various paths, some proving more popular then others. The quest began in earnest with the advent of the cylinder recorder

'Michael Angelo and Denis de Carli, "A Curious and Exact Account of a Voyage to Congo in the Years 1666 and 1667," in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, ed. A. and J. Churchill, 4 vols. (London, 1704), 694.

2Richard Wallaschek, Primitive Music (London: Longmans, 1893), 1. 3Ibid., 4.

in the late nineteenth century, for now expeditions could bring back recorded samples of the music much like the specimens of the flora and fauna. The cylinders captured only 2-3 minutes of performance at a time and consequently obscured the actual duration in the field setting. The late Klaus Wachsmann noted that he planned to investigate time and duration in African music in the 1966 Ethnomusicology Seminar at UCLA but could not find enough recordings of complete performances.4

In many of these explorations, researchers turned toward so- lutions rooted in a unilinear basis of time reckoning, in contrast to what can be called mosaic time.5 Merriam's summary of Afri- can time reckoning pointed in the former direction, for he con- cluded that researchers have assumed an equal-pulse base which not only implies a steady musical beat but which also provides the framework upon which the rhythm is built. Where an equal-pulse base exists, there must also be a further element of chronometry or the quantitative measuring of that time. Mer- riam goes on to point out that given such complexity, a basic organizing principle must be present and beat "one" must exist.6

4Klaus P. Wachsmann, "Music," Journal of the Folklore Institute 6 (1969):164-91.

5See Paul Berliner, The Soul of Mbira (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer- sity of California Press, 1978).

6Alan P. Merriam, "Analysis of African Music Rhythm and Concepts of Time Reckoning" (Paper presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology meet- ing, Austin, Texas, 4 November 1977).


140 Music Theory Spectrum

Merriam is partially right in asserting that Westerners study- ing African rhythm take for granted an equally spaced underly- ing pulse. That is, if we understand pulse as the smallest unit that regularly occurs, then most researchers have made such an assumption, at least implicitly and at least as a way of measuring what they have heard. Given the perspective of Western music, such a procedure is built on patterns with which we are familiar. A crucial subtlety, and one which Merriam does not mention, develops at this point, however, for it does not follow that this background grid of an equally spaced pulse must then deter- mine that the beat constituted of several pulses at the next level in the hierarchy must also be equally spaced. It is precisely with the recognition of unequal beats composed of equal pulses that ethnomusicology begins to break out of a linear perspective.

Some Paths Taken Additive rhythm. In African music then, in the midst of the

linear, a more mosaic approach breaks through in the literature. Additive rhythm, as described by Curt Sachs, is composed of beats that are not necessarily equal in length.7 The double-bell pattern of West Africa, which some researchers have referred to as the timekeeper, can be analyzed as playing beats of unequal length.

Figure 1. Double-bell pattern double bell

Certainly Rose Brandel's work, for example, has not assumed that beats (she calls them conductor beats) are equally spaced even though the pulses may be.8

The evidence points toward a more multifaceted time conception and one rooted in more than the sound product. Rich- ard Waterman, in his explanation of metronome sense, pro- poses that the African participants learn to supply a basic framework of beats that are equally spaced.9 Though this part of his scheme relies on a linear notion and is unsupported by African field research, it more importantly notes that not all beats are aurally sounded, and the musician fills in the unsounded beats mentally. Waterman's theory should be recognized for the con- tribution it makes in simply asserting that rhythm is more than an aural image, and that what happens in the mind of the listener, as performer or audience, is significant.

Offbeat. The linear/mosaic dilemma becomes highlighted in the idea of "offbeat," which is also known as syncopation. 0 The consequences of employing such terminology are far-reaching and need to be scrutinized. Offbeat phrasing and syncopation imply that a steady, equally-spaced beat underlies the performance. Another part is then conceived in relation to that beat, and as the two parts are conceived together the second is playing "off" the beat (even though a regular pattern may develop) and the first part is considered to be "on" the beat. The distinc- tion is important because a question can be raised as to whether, in fact, the two parts might be more adequately analyzed as

x * x * xx * x * xx*

beats

pulses

grouping

x *x *x * x x *x xxxxx?xxxx

2 + 2 + 3 + 2+3 =12 x = struck * = restorsustained

7Curt Sachs, Rhythm and Tempo (New York: W. W. Norton, 1953).

8Rose Brandel, "The African Hemiola Style," Ethnomusicology 3 (1959):106-17; The Music of Central Africa (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961).

9Richard Waterman, "African Influence on the Music of the Americas," in Acculturation in the Americas, ed. Sol Tax (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 2:207-18.

'"David Locke, "The Music of Atsiagbeko" (Ph.D. diss., Wesleyan Uni- versity, 1978), 349; John Miller Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensi- bility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 47-48.


In Search of Time in African Music 141

moving in rhythms where each maintains its own beat, albeit beats that do not coincide. This is no small problem for at the base is the question of whether there are cooperating but inde- pendently conceived rhythms or a single rhythm.

Arthur M. Jones, one of the most indefatigable researchers of African rhythm, maintains that a time background is indeed present. He locates it in the clap pattern, whether it was produced by handclapping or a pestle-beat, or something like the paddles in a canoe song.11 He makes an important point, however, when he says, "the African, while strictly regarding it as a metrical background, is not in the least using it to indicate any accentual stress in the melody." He even calls it "a kind of metronome which exists behind the music."'2 Gerhard Kubik also identifies notes that are played offbeat but makes a clear point that these notes drag or anticipate the pulse rather than stand on any "definite point of division of the basic pulse."13

Hemiola. Rose Brandel, among others, argues that what might be identified as syncopation or offbeat phrasing is better described as hemiola. For our purposes, what is conceived from a linear perspective should better be seen from the mosaic point of view. Following the lead of her mentor Curt Sachs she notes, "The African hemiola style is based on the play of two and three, which is much like the Middle Eastern additive style of rhythm with its far greater diversity of durational contrast."'4 Pulses are grouped together in units of two or three and they can exhibit the 2:3 ratio horizontally over time or vertically between parts. Figures 2 and 3 show typical realizations of horizontal and vertical hemiola.

"Arthur M. Jones, Studies in African Music, 2 vols. (London: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1959), 3.

12Ibid., 20-21. '3Gerhard Kubik, "Transcription of Mangwilo Xylophone Music from

Film Strips," African Music 3, no. 4(1965):41. '4Brandel, The Music of Central Africa, 15.

Figure 2. Horizontal hemiola x * * * X * * x * X

2+2+2+3+ 3 =12 or

X * X * X * * X * X *

2+ 2+ 3+ 2+3 =12

Figure 3. Vertical hemiola 2+2+2+2+2+2

X * X X X * * X ?

X X* X X* X * X x

2+2+ 3 + 2+3

Such a conception allows the possibility of unequally spaced beats without the implication that asymmetrical beats are "off' a central beat. Thus a flexibility of interpretation introduces the possibility that beats may be unequal in length without involving syncopation.

The interpretation of hemiola allows a more flexible approach to rhythm, perhaps one that is not as fundamentally linear in its grounding, that is, in its single organizing beat. John Blacking comments on a g rhythmic pattern. When it is played in Europe it is always conceived as the product of a single agent-with a very few possible exceptions. . . . In the African context the rhythm expresses the perfect cooperation of two performers who nevertheless preserve their individuality by maintaining different main beats.15

Blacking's reference is much like the Kpelle chorus which fa- vors individuals all singing interlocking ostinato parts and which

15John Blacking, Process and Product in Human Society (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1969), 18.


142 Mu, ic Theory Spectrum

gives each singer a different part, one which fits into a seamless whole that supports the soloist.

Cross and inherent rhythms. Though hemiola hints at the mosaic conception, cross rhythm as articulated by A. M. Jones truly allows the coexistence of mosaic-linear patterns. Cross rhythm he defines as follows:

The melody being additive, and the claps being divisive, when put together they result in a combination of rhythms whose inherent stresses are crossed. This is of the very essence of African music: this is what the African is after. He wants to enjoy a conflict of rhythms.16 Jones, in fact, incorporates elements of both Waterman's and Brandel's approach. He simply finds that one part may be divisive (Waterman) while another may be additive (Brandel). To put it another way, the former is linearly conceived, the latter mosaic. Thus, Jones's crossing of rhythms suggests not only different rhythms, but different principles of constructing rhythms.

Mosaic time is also suggested by Gerhard Kubik's idea of inherent rhythms17 and extended in Nissio Fiagbedzi's work.18 The gestalt pattern for the listener is different than any one of the several players' rhythms. Rhythms result as a consequence of their juxtaposition in certain configurations that do not exist in individual parts.

Standard pattern and timbre. All this talk of hemiola, offbeat, cross and inherent rhythm becomes for some scholars a way of beating about the proverbial bush for it is the "standard patter," a rhythmic phrase most characteristically in 2, that

16Jones, Studies in African Music, 21-22. 17Gerhard Kubik, "The Phenomenon of Inherent Rhythms in East and

Central African Instrumental Music," African Music 3, no. 1(1962):33-42. '8Nissio Fiagbedzi, "A Preliminary Inquiry into Inherent Rhythms in Anlo

Dance Drumming," Journal of the PerformingArts (Legon) 1, no. 1(1980):83- 99.

organizes time in the ensemble (see Fig. 1). The distinctiveness of this pattern has inspired such titles as "time line,"19 "struc- tural core,"20 and "timekeeper," for as Kwabena Nketia comments, "The rhythm pattern is therefore a guiding principle and it is in this sense that the gong may be referred to as timekeeper."21 James Koetting, however, cautions that this relationship should not be overextended when he says, "While the function of the gong as a basic ensemble timing center must not be questioned, it would be a mistake to analyze all the patterns of a piece as though they had a primary timing relation to the gong."22

The standard pattern, from what we now know, is not conceived by Africans through counting or quantitative means. In- deed, speech syllables qualitatively differentiate the pattern, syllables that duplicate the rhythm and convey timbral subtleties. The crucial part played by timbre in rhythm is noted by Roderic Knight: But in view of the importance of timbre in the drumming technique, one may conclude that his [the drummer's] abilities are at least in part attributable to learning each rhythm as a pattern of timbres- different timbres produced by four basic strokes on the drum.23

Those four strokes in Lenjengo recreational dancing in The Gambia are played on the kutiridingo (a conical drum played with one stick and one hand), as shown in Figure 4.

19Gerhard Kubik, "Oral Notation of Some West and Central African Time-Line Patterns," Review of Ethnology 3, no. 22(1972):169-76.

20Gerhard Kubik, "The Emics of African Musical Rhythm" (1983), unpublished MS.

21J. H. Kwabena Nketia, "Traditional Music of the Ga People," African Music 2, no. 1(1958):21.

22James Koetting, "Analysis and Notation of West African Drum Ensem- ble Music," Selected Reports, Institute of Ethnomusicology, UCLA 1, no. 3(1970):137.

23Roderic Knight, "Mandinka Drumming," African Arts 7(1974):29.



Figure 4. Kutiridingo strokes24 6 kum 8. K

ba B

din da D * d

Kum is played with an open hand that bounces off the head; ba is a damped stroke produced when the fingers hit the head and press it to lessen the vibration. Din is an open-stick stroke, and da is a damped-stick stroke. A range of timbral subtleties emerge. This approach does not present the time line as nearly linear as it might first appear when counted in a 2 configura- tion. Instead it can now become almost a picture of contrasting textures juxtaposed.

Motorpattern. As early as 1928 Erich M. von Hornbostel as- serted that motor patterns must be studied in order to understand the basis of African rhythms.25 Though many disagree with his conclusions, others have followed his lead in analyzing body movement. Gerhard Kubik points to the need to consider rhythm as consisting of not only acoustic but motor and visual elements as well.26 Moses Serwadda and Hewitt Pantaleoni, for example, show how drumming and dancing are inextricably linked when they write, "In fact a drummer will indicate the dance motions sometimes as a way of explaining and teaching a [drum] pattern."27 In involving the motor, time becomes

24Ibid., 28. 25John Blacking, "Some Notes on a Theory of African Rhythm Advanced

by Erich von Hornbostel," African Music 1, no. 2(1955):12-20; Erich M. von Hornbostel, "African Negro Music," Africa 1(1928):30-62.

26Kubik, "Mangwilo Xylophone Music," 35-41; Gerhard Kubik, "Tran- scription of African Music from Silent Film: Theory and Methods," African Music 5, no. 1(1972):28-39; "Patterns of Body Movement in the Music of Boys' Initiation in South-East Angola," in The Anthropology of the Body, ed. John Blacking, ASA Monographs 15 (London: Academic Press, 1977), 253- 74.

27Moses Serwadda and Hewitt Pantaleoni, "A Possible Notation for Afri- can Dance Drumming," African Music 4, no. 2(1968):52.

viewed as many elements moving together, a more mosaic and interrelated approach.

Transaction. Perhaps it is interaction which most clearly shows the predilection toward mosaic time. A number of Afri- can peoples appear to stress the primacy of transaction between two performing parts. Kubik, for example, notes that two players of the Mangwilo xylophone in southeast Africa sit opposite one another and share in playing the same instrument. They are referred to as opachera (the starting one) and wakulela (the responding one).28 Similarly, Paul Berliner demonstrates that even with a solo instrument like the plucked idiophonic mbira of Zimbabwe, the Shona people designate the first part as kushaura (to lead the piece, to take the solo part) and the second part as the kutsihira (to exchange parts of a song, to inter- weave a second interlocking mbira part).29 The Shona people praise the mbira for complexity saying that "It sounds like many instruments being played at once."30

Kubik identifies what he calls "interlocking" style when in Mangwilo xylophone music each player feels his own pulse and the two mesh when heard as one into yet another unity.31 The rhythms then exist with both individual and corporate identity.

If the transaction notion is primary, then the search for a uni- fying beat by which all performers measure and plan their performance becomes less important and less likely to provide an answer to how Africans organize time in music. The contrasting idea that drums, for example, converse in interaction is a prominent theme and can be conceived as a kind of call-response pattern.32 The call-response pattern, as a form of transaction, exists in all types of performances.

2Kubik, "Mangwilo Xylophone Music," 36. 29Berliner, Soul of Mbira, 73. 30Ibid., 23. 31Kubik, "Mangwilo Xylophone Music," 39. 32Chernoff, African Rhythm, 53.



For the Kpelle musicians of Liberia, transaction is con- structed as a shifting kind of layered network. The soloist is always balanced by a responding counterpart (tomo-son-nuu). A master drummer finds his counterpart in the gbun-gbun drummer playing a cylindrical drum. But in the fluidity of making music, the chorus at another time is the counterpart or response to the call of the soloist.33

Paul Berliner extends the transaction to include the instrument itself. A performance cannot be studied simply from the individual parts, for to the musician,

the music reflected back to him by his resonator as he plays seems to be more complex than that which his fingers alone produce. It is, then, real musical feedback that the musician receives from his instrument. It may well be that this feedback is responsible for some musicians' personification and its role in the music-making process.34

John Blacking highlights the notion of transaction as a value by showing that musicians use it, not out of necessity, but by choice for aesthetic purposes:

Thus, performances by combinations of two or three players of rhythms that can, in fact, be played by one are not musical gimmicks: they express concepts of individuality in community, and of social, temporal, and spatial balance, which are found in other features of Venda culture and other types of Venda music.35

What we are observing for African music exists, according to Edward T. Hall, for all human beings, though in many West- ern cases it remains largely unnoticed. That is, body movement stems not from individualistic impulse but from response to,

33Ruth M. Stone, Let the Inside Be Sweet: The Interpretation of Music Event Among the Kpelle of Liberia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 81.

34Berliner, Soul of Mbira, 130. 35John Blacking, How Musical Is Man? (Seattle: University of Washington

Press, 1973), 30.

and awareness of, the movements of others.36 William Condon and his associates maintain that infants synchronize their movements to those of another person regardless of the verbal language.37 Thus, what occurs on an unconscious level for all people is perhaps a very conscious and focused way of structuring action and making music in African societies.

The Case of the Woi Epic Our discussion of time up to this point has reflected primar-

ily the concern with the level of an individual song. We can also study a performance segment that includes more than a song and consider time at a broader level. To do so, let us begin with a sung epic of the Kpelle of Liberia. The particular case includes seventeen episodes, each with a distinctive song sung as a background by the chorus. Against the choral backdrop, a storyteller assisted by a questioner and two instrumentalists form the ensemble.

The episodes of the Woi epic, spinning on the adventures of a superhuman hero, are segmented by a formulaic phrase sung by the soloist, "Dried millet, wese" [sound of breaking] and an- swered by the chorus, "Wese. " So though one might expect seventeen neatly delineated segments, following one after another, things are not quite that tidy and not quite that linear. For as a man in the audience remarked, "The Woi epic never finishes, we just keep bouncing." First of all, the endings of segments are blurred by singing phrases of a future episode before the present episode is complete. Second, the teller, as often as sentence to sentence, moves to various times, revealing the action of the story. Finally, spirits of deceased great performers

36Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1977), 71-84.

37William S. Condon and L. W. Sander, "Neonate Movement is Synchro- nized with Adult Speech: Interactional Participation and Language Acquisi- tion," Science 183 (1974):99-101.



are often invoked to enter the performance and in doing so the storyteller makes people of the past part of the present action.

The Woi epic, significantly, has no precise starting nor con- cluding episode. Unlike the Mwindo epic recorded by Daniel Biebuyck and Kahombo Mateene among the Nyanga people, the epic does not proceed from the birth of the hero through his various lifetime adventures.38 Rather, from all evidence, the teller is free to begin at any point and end at any point. This, according to the Kpelle, underscores the very continuity of the event.

The sense of linear time and causal connection so prominent in Western plot development figures very little in this epic. If we are looking for development of characters we will not find it. Such a concept is important to stories developed in linear time, but time as developed in the Woi epic is more mosaic in charac- ter. Here coincidence rather than causation is paramount. By this I mean that two incidents are juxtaposed because they hap- pen to reveal some similarity, not because one is the result of the other. When Kulung, the narrator, performs the episode of Spider eating enormous amounts of food and being angry because he does not feel it is sufficient, Kulung does not explore the root causes of the anger or its motivation. Rather he inserts a series of proverbs to help the audience see similarities between the meanings and the spider's plight. When the narrator cites the proverb, "The Poro [men's secret society] is on a person, the matter angers him," to describe Spider's anger, anyone who is Kpelle knows the authoritarian finality of Poro deci- sions. With no debate and no negotiation, one accepts the Poro authority. To mention this proverb in song is to strike a reso- nance with the audience, for each has poignant experience with this pervasive institution. Many can recall the hard anger that knows no alternative and must be borne knowing there will be no change.

38Daniel Biebuyck and Kahombo C. Mateene, The Mwindo Epic (Berke- ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971).

In each of the episodes, the signature choral ostinato hints at and, in a sense, is a capsule summary of the episode. Subse- quent imagery and action simply unfold what, encapsulated in the choral part, was presented in miniature.

The development is that of outward expansion like a seed growing. Elsewhere I have referred to such time segments as expandable moments.39 Such an approach recalls Georges Gurvitch's definition of time as a "continuity of heterogeneous moments"40 and relates to Harold Scheub's idea of the "expansible image" of the ntsomi, a musical dramatic narrative of the Xhosa of southern Africa.41

Lest we assume a static quality in time through the use of something like an expandable moment, we must hasten to add that the depiction of action and movement is key in a number of African groups. As one Kpelle person told me, there are six different words to describe a trembling movement of a dancer. Beyond this, performance is described not only in terms of movement, but in carefully located and placed action as people say, "Raise the song," "Cut the edge of the dance," "Drop the song," or "Lower the performance." As Scheub concludes for the Xhosa narrative:

Movement is vital to the tradition, action is all important, and charac- ter is revealed not by description but through action. Similarly, theme is revealed not by interpolations or preachments, but through action.42

The expansion of a moment depends heavily, in African societies, upon the nature of audience-performer interaction. The length of any song or, for that matter, the entire event

39Stone, Let the Inside Be Sweet, 72. 40Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time (Dordrecht: D. Riedel,

1964), 18. 41Harold Scheub, "The Techniques of the Expansible Image in Xhosa Nt-

somi Performances," Research in African Literatures 1, no. 2(1970):119-46. 42Ibid., 144.



hangs on the quality of relationship that develops during the performance. The Kpelle indicate this by the token gifts that the audience bestows upon the performers at intervals showing approval of their efforts. Cigarettes, cane juice, palm wine, or coins are given, often accompanied by a speech of carefully shaped oratory. Without such audience feedback, Kpelle performers seek to terminate the event at an early point. This call and response on a broader level becomes an index of the rap- port among participants. Pierre Bordieu calls such continuous gift exchange in Algeria the "little present" to "keep the friend- ship going."43 Duration in music is very much contingent in this kind of a performance and depends upon the quality of social relationships.

Some Paths of Inner Time

If music serves as a vehicle to transform aspects of an individual's experience, time can certainly be one of these aspects. In music events, Alfred Schutz maintains that it is not the coordination of drums one with another in outer time, the focus of our categories up to now, that is the central experience.44 While such coordination is certainly prerequisite, the richness of music arises from the inner time experience. Outer time, according to Schutz, contains homogeneous units and is measurable by devices such as clocks and metronomes. Since Schutz's experience as an amateur musician and sociologist was confined to the West, we may, from what we know of African music, sug- gest that his definition needs to be modified. From the African perspective outer time is that time through which action is coordinated, though it is not necessarily conceived in homogene-

43Pierre Bordieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 7.

44Christine A. Skarda, "Alfred Schutz's Phenomenology of Music," Jour- nal of Musicological Research 3(1979):75-132.

ous, quantifiable terms. Inner time, on the other hand, exists for participants within the stream of consciousness and does not, as Schutz suggests, contain homogeneous units of measure. It is "dependent upon retention, impression, and antici- pation."45 William James illustrates the rhythm of inner time as "flying stretches and resting places in the stream of consciousness.46

The experience in inner time seems to affect our outer time in retrospect as the two interact. Successful events are esti- mated as shorter, for as Robert Orstein comments, successful experience is more organized in the human mind.47 Con- versely, an hour in a hospital waiting room may seem to us much longer because of our inner time experience. As Charlie Brown says to Linus, "Which do you think last longer in life, the good things or the bad things?" Linus replies, "Good things last eight seconds .... Bad things last three weeks." Charlie Brown asks, "What about in between?" Snoopy lying on the top of the doghouse thinks, "In between you should take a nap. 48

Though little literature on African music documents the fas- cinating dimension of inner time, several ethnomusicologists provide initial insights. Alan Boyd, working in the Muslim community of Lamu, Kenya, describes a visible interplay of inner and outer time in the maulidi events, musical performances that include recitations from the Koran interspersed with hymns. Participants move toward inner time by coordinating a unison swaying motion.

45Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, Rpt., ed. M. Natanson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 170.

46Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life World (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 119.

47Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1972), 86-87.

48Charles Schulz, "Peanuts Cartoon," International Herald Tribune, 17 February 1982.



The rhythms accompanying the hymn are steady at first, but are in- creased in intensity as the chorus is sung by everyone. As each verse is begun by an individual, the drummers relax the pulse, but as soon as the group joins in they increase the volume, the tempo and the intensity of the beat. During the repetitions, the tempo becomes steadily more forceful, emphasizing the motions of the dancers.49

While such activity facilitates meditation and the vivid experiencing of inner time, certain circumstances may counteract transformation in the audience awareness. Boyd gives an in- stance when outer time was the predominant focus. An inexpe- rienced frame-drum player was tolerated for some time by the audience. But as group coordination became more crucial toward the end of the hymn, an older drummer moved in and re- placed him and, as Boyd reports, there was an "audible commu- nal sigh."50

Paul Berliner, in his study of mbira performance among the Shona of Zimbabwe, vividly describes aspects of what we are here terming inner time though he does not label it as such. He describes the scene one morning at sunrise following an all- night ceremony for ancestral spirits. People are exhausted from the effort spent and lack of sleep during the performance. Ha- kurotwo Mude, a mbira player, looked in the distance and qui- etly played his instrument, oblivious to his young son who put a hand on his father's shoulder.

As Mude played the mbira his eyes became clouded. Tears welled up and fell silently down his cheeks. It was some time before anyone no- ticed what was happening. Finally Mude's father-in-law walked over and knelt before him. Careful not to interfere with his playing of the mbira, the old man pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and blot- ted up the tears of Mude's cheeks. Tears flowed so steadily that the old man saw it was to no avail. He stood up and silently motioned to

49Alan Boyd, "The Dimension of Time in the Definition of the Situation with Reference to Maulidi" (1975), unpublished MS, 8.

5?Ibid., 9.

all the other villagers seated around to follow him into the large kitchen where the bira had previously been held. So as not to embar- rass Mude, we left him to his music and his tears.51

The evidence is abundant that Mude was focusing his awareness in inner time where, through music, his experience moved him to tears. Though we can only infer our conclusion, Mude was apparently not concentrating on the timing of his music or the physical act of creating it for that seemed quite automatic.

In Conclusion

In some respects, scholars have studied African time in music for an extended period. In other respects, the research has just started for only recently have the views of the Africans themselves been taken seriously. From a study of the past, we can glean some directions that ideas are moving, directions that are, at best, tentative and which will surely shift as more data becomes available.

Time in African music is multidimensional. Following Alfred Schutz's model, time in music moves in a series of coordinated dimensions. Some of these dimensions are of "outer time" or those that serve primarily to coordinate the individuals making and experiencing music together. Others come from "inner time," the subjectively experienced time. The essential point is that musical time cannot be reduced to a single dimension. Mu- sical time must be the coordination of a number of simultane- ously experienced flows. Much of past research has centered on the study of the outer time dimension, and conclusions have assumed a linear progression. We are here suggesting that a mosaic concept of outer time may be more powerful in describing much African music-making. Inner time is yet to be studied to any degree.

51Berliner, Soul of Mbira, 132.



Time in African music emphasizes qualitative elements. Re- cent research stresses the essential concern demonstrated for timbral qualities by African musicians. Such attention stresses qualitative aspects rather than the quantitative aspects so often stressed in the Western ordering of time in music. Drummers memorize mnemonic phrases that represent the subtleties of timbre that they wish to produce rather than a numerical se- quence of ordered pitches.

Time in African music emphasizes the delineation of space. African performance places considerable stress on qualitatively distinguishing music by reference to space. Thus actions occur in three-dimensional space and sounds occur conceptually "under," "above," "outside," and "inside." In events such as Kpelle epic performances, heroes characteristically move in multiple planes and spaces and are supported by music that people think of in a spatial manner. Thus music in time assumes a volume that contrasts to Western notions of a more flat and linear progression.

Time in African music emphasizes the concept of motion. Af- rican vocabularies are rich in terms for describing even slight differences in movement, and musicians often notice and com- ment on varieties of motion. Thus the idea of mosaic progression by no means implies a static state.

The past, in African music, is dynamically manipulated in the present. While the most is made of the present and music performances center on the present, the past is an equally essential

element. Through spirits in performances, the past provides authority and sanction for the present and is constantly referred to in order to create the present moment.

Time in African music is contingent. Those elements which are part of the singer's repertoire do not include the entire com- position waiting to be reproduced. Rather the singer's stock of knowledge incorporates phrases, patterns, and proverbs to be woven and juxtaposed in light of the performance event's mo- mentary exigencies.

The uniqueness of African musical time rests on the particular stress on mosaic rhythmic structure, qualitative expression, the delineation of space, and a constant emphasis on motion. While these elements are not unique or unknown to Western thought, the way they are emphasized is distinctive. The nuance of emphasis provides a subtle yet striking approach to organizing music.

Perhaps the subtlety of what we are pointing out is the reason that it is easy to ignore. Perhaps this is why Western ethnomusicologists can apply other grids without great problems. The results can be viewed in other ways and these ways have been of value. But in the end, the differences do make a difference. They show us how wispy are the concepts we seek, how fragile they seem as we move through data looking for the overwhelm- ing and the powerful. Only through equal attention to theory and data and through careful reading of past texts will the nu- ances of African musical time emerge.


Article Contentsp. [139]p. 140p. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p. 146p. 147p. 148

Issue Table of ContentsMusic Theory Spectrum, Vol. 7, Spring, 1985Front MatterThe Temporal "Spectrum" [pp. 1 - 6]Metric and Rhythmic Articulation in Music [pp. 7 - 33]Tempo Relations: A Cross-Cultural Study [pp. 34 - 71]Studies of Time and Music: A Bibliography [pp. 72 - 106]Sketches for a Low-Frequency Solfge [pp. 107 - 113]A Rhythmic Study of the Exposition in the Second Movement of Beethoven's Quartet Op. 59, No. 1 [pp. 114 - 138]In Search of Time in African Music [pp. 139 - 148]"Musical Form and Musical Performance" Reconsidered [pp. 149 - 158]Rhythm and Meter in Ancient Greek Music [pp. 159 - 180]The Art of the Audible "Now" [pp. 181 - 184]Reviewsuntitled [pp. 185 - 190]untitled [pp. 190 - 202]untitled [pp. 203 - 207]untitled [pp. 207 - 213]

[Letter from Edward Tripp] [p. 213]Back Matter [pp. 214 - 216]

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African music