Ewe singer-composer-poets of Ghana (ESCPG) CD project

Short form: http://bit.ly/NorvorCD

Title

Kinka: traditional songs from Avenorpedo (Volta Region, Ghana) asdfasdf

Credits

Performer credits

Kwasi Norvor Afornorfe: composer, poet, lead singer

Production credits

all people mentioned on the cassette
Kelsey
Kreisha
Patrick

Thanks

University of Alberta Faculty of Arts SAS grant
Dept of Music Presidents' Fund

Tracks

Audio

KINKA

Medo agoo na mi
Agbemefu wo
Gbet? nye t? goglo
Kugbeawo ta
Miva mido gbe da de South Africa ta
Africa dukpl?lawo
When my star will shine
Miv?gbet?

KINKA HATSIATSIA

AblOde vua di go
Dze dom wo le
Gbe ka gOe mefo ve
Yehowa nye kplOla nye
Mele klo dzi na afetO

SINGA

Miawo vua va agbo dzi
Midi vinyewo nam
HenO Amu be Ha ku na va
Nyigba li
Mele ku vOm
MeyOe metO o

Video

If space permits: One track containing Kinka drumming call and response patterns (accompanied by transcription in the liner notes). However there may not be room - the cassette probably already contains nearly a CD's worth of music. Will have to check this.

Design

Specs

4+1 booklet (color on the outside, b&w inside), 4+4 traycard (color on both sides), color CD face

Text

450 words is absolute max for one page, and that's with 7pt type and basically no graphic element. 350 words/page would be closer to ideal, because that gives room to add in a heading, graphic element, or loosen up the text a bit (so it doesn't look so heavy).

Lose roughly 100 words for every picture placed on a page, if the page is quartered and one quarter is removed for an image.

Use Charis unicode font for Ewe characters: http://scripts.sil.org/CharisSILfont

Booklet

Outline

Telescopic liner notes (moving from broader to narrower categories) Main source: Frishkopf MA thesis. Other sources: TBA

Preface: Orthography - Ewe letters and sounds

Ewe people overview, history and culture, social organizations, performance/ritual life, with map indicating also location of recording
Ewe music, generally. Contexts, concept of drum, with diagrams. Ref: literature on Ewe music, CDs available.
funeral societies in Ewe society. General – refs. Lebene haborbor in particular. Typical performance contexts and content (e.g. siga and kinka)
music and funeral societies. Provide typical context and content of performance, outlining roles of siga and kinka.
Kinka drum detailed overview. Delineate structures and performance sections, in context of their use, special role of the composer - poets
Active composer/singer tradition, for “new” recreational Ewe pieces, such as kinka. Ref. literature, mf thesis, new research.
Norvor: bio, photos, interviews, other musicians.
audio: track by track summary: texts (ewe & translation), norvor comments, notations for c/r by track

Mockups

The following pages will contain mockups of each 2 page spread (one page each for the front and back). Note that all photos are b&w -- except for the front and the back. At least 1 page (perhaps 2) will contain the map. The last booklet page will probably contain credits, over a photo. (The back of the CD can contain track and publication info, but not a full credits list.)

click here for templates. Just download the one page spread and duplicate it 14 times to make your 28 page booklet.

Tray

inside

back cover

CD face

MMS quote

Media:uofaquote.pdf

Tasks

Kelsey

Design. Current tasks are:

front cover of booklet (and CD), using pdf from cassette
map with new locations marked (to be used in booklet; taken from buduburam CD but in black & white)
running headers and footers, with page numbers and a creative flourish...perhaps using adinkra symbols, or small drum symbols
use of adinkra or small drum symbols to separate text blocks

Cari

format lyrics, alternating Ewe and English, all lower case (except names, "I"), using any symbol (e.g. '*') to separate stanzas
add title, title translation, and author for every song (sometimes the author may not be Norvor...)
add song description from Norvor interview to each lyrics pages
put pages in order, and check against recordings (I'll have to get you a copy of the CD)
format Norvor interview

Patrick

select photos, esp. for tray (front and back), CD face, and back cover of booklet (all are color images)
add photos: village, of us (Cari, Patrick, Michael), of recording process (Gavin, Godwin)
add captions for each photo
add tech instructions to Kelsey for each photo (e.g. you want a black background, or small size, or...)
type using Charis font

Ideally perhaps we can think about a small graphic on each lyrics page - should be a closeup of face or instrument. Shorter songs may allow larger photos. We don't need one on absolutely every page, but perhaps on every 2-page spread there should be at least one photo.

Michael

assemble audio tracks
make sample audio cds for Cari, Patrick, Kelsey
assemble video clip if it's to be used
add transcriptions for some songs (scan thesis)
add transcriptions for drumming track (for instruction), using also Kwasi's instructions
write introductory pages

Ewe singer-composer-poets of Ghana CD

Contents