Ethnomusicology of Africa - Resources

This is a selective listing; for a more comprehensive resource page see African News, Arts, and Culture

General works about Africa

• Kevin Shillington, History of Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) A general history of Africa, providing the big picture. Available on Rutherford Reserve.
• John Parker and Richard Rathbone - African History: A Very Short Introduction. From the well-known Oxford "very short introduction" series.

General works about Ghana

• Ghana overview. Ghana: An Oxfam Country Profile, by Julie Naylor. A free download from Oxfam.
• A general reference work on Ghana: Ghana: a country study (from the Library of Congress) in a single pdf file (minus one chapter) (also available in full, but piecemeal, on the Library of Congress site). I used this in the past, but it's increasingly dated (last revised 1994).

On Northern Ghana:

• The lions of Dagbon: political change in Northern Ghana, by Martin Staniland
• Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers : History, Politics, and Land Ownership in Northern Ghana, by Wyatt MacGaffey

On African Music (with focus on Ghana)

Books

• J. H. Kwabena Nketia - The Music of Africa (Norton, 1974). Prof. Nketia is the foremost living ethnomusicologist of African music, as well as one of the most important ethnomusicologists in the history of the field, and one of Ghana's outstanding composers. Other materials are available online, but this is his primary general work on traditional African music. Available on Rutherford reserve.
• African Music: A People's Art, by Francis Bebey. Available online. Focus on traditional music.
• John Collins - West African Pop Roots (Temple University Press, 1992). Professor Collins is a wonderful resource and this is a wonderful book about popular music of West Africa. Many other works by Professor Collins are available online.
• David Locke - Drum Gahu: An Introduction to African Rhythm (White Cliffs Media, 1998). A terrific practical introduction--both hands-on and theoretical--to the structure of African music, by means of an Ewe music style called Gahu, which we'll also study through performance. I'm listing it as "optional" because you should be acquainted with musical notation in order to get the most out of it. However the book also comes with a valuable CD.
• Drum Damba (White Cliffs Media, 1990). Another wonderful book by Professor Locke, on the northern dance style of the Dagbamba (Dagomba) people.
• John Chernoff - African Music, African Sensibility (University Of Chicago Press, 1981) Focus on traditional music of Ghana. One of the best books ever written in ethnomusicology, period.
• Representing African Music : Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions, by Kofi Agawu. This is the key critical, reflective work on African music scholarship.

Websites

• Dagomba music and culture website at Tufts university
• A Drummer's Testament, on traditional music and culture of the Dagbamba people in northern Ghana.
• Awesome Tapes from Africa

Audio

For more on Ghana click here.

Four excellent audio sources:

• Contemporary World Music
• Smithsonian Global Sound
• Ethnocloud
• Awesome tapes from Africa

Smithsonian Folkways albums can also be purchased online via http://www.folkways.si.edu/ or (for less $) on http://emusic.com. Other albums can be purchased on emusic.com or itunes.com. If you like it, buy it and put it on your ipod or other music device.

Please read the liner notes while you listen! Ethnomusicology is all about music embedded in social context, and the sound itself rarely provides that context. Good liner notes do.

Smithsonian Folkways tracks (available online)

These tracks and albums are accompanied with liner notes:

Browse all African music tracks from Smithsonian Folkways

Contemporary World Music and other tracks (mostly available online)

Note that some of the links below may only function for those with University of Alberta library access (these links access the University of Alberta library database, Contemporary World Music). But using the publication information provided, you can locate these recordings online and purchase them, via iTunes, emusic.com, and other music download sites. Note that both audio and liner notes are available.

Browse all Contemporary World Music tracks from Africa

Awesome tapes from Africa

Awesome tapes represents the popular music traditions of Africa, since the advent of cassettes in the 70s.

Video

I've compiled a number of recommendations on the large resources site, here.

Other resources for ethnomusicological research

See the CCE site

African Literature

Like music, literature gives you the "flavor" of a culture; stories can also be used within your creative modules. Here are a few suggestions for Ghana (our country focus):

• The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah (b. 1939), one of Ghana's most illustrious contemporary writers.
• Nigerian Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) sadly passed away this year. His brilliant novel Things Fall Apart (1958), dramatizing the clash of colonialism, Western culture, and tradition in an Igbo village, is the most widely-ready book in modern African literature.
• Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, by Manu Herbstein, is a sweeping historical epic that wonderfully links so many issues and themes in West African history and culture. It's on the long side (but very easy to read), so you might want to begin reading it before departing for Ghana. This book is perhaps outstanding less as literature than as historical fiction which links very nicely to our summer program.