The Mandinka Balafon offers in depth research on the history, construction, and use of the West African balafon. Lynne Jessup provides a variety of accounts of the origin of the bala, including interviews with the jeli griots of The Gambia. Seventeen transcribed balafon songs are notated with modified box notation and two accompanying CDs, with the history and use of each song. Detailed information is given on the construction and tuning of the Mandinka balafon, with supportive photos and drawings.
With Mande Music, Eric Charry offers the most comprehensive source available on one of Africa's richest and most sophisticated music cultures. Using resources as disparate as early Arabic travel accounts, oral histories, and archival research as well as his own extensive studies in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and the Gambia, Charry traces this music culture from its origins in the thirteenth-century Mali empire to the recording studios of Paris and New York. He focuses on the four major spheres of Mande music—hunter's music, music of the jelis or griots, jembe and other drumming, and guitar-based modern music—exploring how each evolved, the types of instruments used, the major artists, and how each sphere relates to the others. With its maps, illustrations, and musical transcriptions as well as an exhaustive bibliography, discography, and videography, this book is essential reading for those seeking an in-depth look at one of the most exciting, innovative, and deep-rooted phenomena on the world music scene. A compact disc is available separately.
Life is a pilgrimage. For the Senufo of C™te d'Ivoire, life consists of following the kologo, that is the path, the road, or the way. As such, kologo is a key Senufo term that speaks of the directions people choose to follow in life. A central aspect of following the Christian pathway among Senufo believers occurs through music. Music serves as a major communication vehicle that speaks profoundly into the people's lives. Thus, Pathways in Christian Music Communication addresses the problem of contextualization of Christianity in Africa via the use of a people's indigenous music. It focuses on the significance of culturally appropriate songs for effective communication of the Gospel within the African context. In providing a history of the development of Christian songs among the Senufo, a musical analysis of the songs and music culture, identifying communication theory at work within the music-making process, and a content analysis of an emerging Senufo lyric theology, King shows the pivotal role that a people's cultural music plays in integrating a people's worldview and daily lives with biblical teaching. Finally, King examines the influence and effect of songs in communicating the Gospel by showing how the pathway of a song leads to changes of allegiance to the living God and transformed lives. Although set in West Africa, essential principles and guidelines for doing ethnomusicological studies within missiology lies at the heart of this work.
This two-volume encyclopedia is the first to focus on the material life of slaves. Although many encyclopedias discuss slavery, enslaved blacks, and African American life and culture, none focus on the material world of slaves, such as what they saw; touched; heard; ate, drank, and smoked; wore; worked with and in; used, cultivated, crafted, played, and played with; and slept on. The two-volume World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States is a landmark work in this important new field of study. Recognizing that a full understanding of the complexity of American slavery and its legacy requires an understanding of the material culture of slavery, the encyclopedia includes entries on almost every aspect of that material culture, beginning in the 17th century and extending through the Civil War. Readers will find information on animals, documents, economy, education and literacy, food and drink, home, music, personal items, places, religion, rites of passage, slavery, structures, and work. There are also introductory essays on literacy and oral culture and on music and dance.
This book describes the remarkable culture of jeliya, a musical and verbal art from the Manding region of West Africa. Using an embodied practice as her methodology, the author reveals how she and her music teachers live “in between” local and global cultures. Her journey spans 20 years of fieldwork presented through personal and intimate stories, first as a student of the balafon instrument, then as a patron of the music. Tensions build in both the music and in social relations that require resolutions, underscoring the differences between two world views. Through balafon lessons, the author embodies values such as patience, courage, and generosity, resulting in a transformative practice that leads her to better understand her position vis-à-vis that of her jeli teachers. Meanwhile, jeliya itself, despite having been transmitted from teacher to student for 800 years, is currently in peril. Jelis cite modern globalized culture and people like the author herself as both a source of the problem as well as the potential solution.
This is a beginning book of percussion pieces designed to assist the teacher in providing a hands on experience with the sounds of African percussion ensembles. The collection is based on authentic pieces of music, however ho attempt has been made to notate the improvisation and variation that are inherent in African Drumming . As with any oral tradition even within a recognized piece of music, there are changes and variations so that no one version is the “correct “ one. A CD is included with the book.
The field of history is founded on the interrogation of written documents from the past. However, culture is the center of life in Africa. As a result, in the past – and to a degree in the present – the process for documenting events in Africa was not written, it was performed. History Dances: Chronicling the History of Traditional Mandinka Dance argues that a wealth of information is housed within traditional Mandinka dance and, consequently, the dances can be used as an African-derived primary source for writing African history. Ofosuwa M. Abiola highlights the overall value of studying Mandinka dance history specifically, and African dance history generally, as well as addressing the issue of scarcity with regard to primary sources for writing African history. History Dances proves to be a vital read for both undergraduate students and scholars in the fields of dance history, African history, performance studies, and cultural anthropology.
The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of The Gambia_through its chronology, introductory essay, appendixes, map, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, institutions, and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects_provides an important reference on this burgeoning African country.
