Analysis and analytic techniques in African music: A theory of melodic scales

Abstract

In our article, "Concepts of African Musical Theory" ,1 we debunked the con tention (by A.M. Jones) that:(The African) is utterly unconscious of any organised theory behind his music. He makes his music quite spontaneously and it is with interest and the delight of discovery that the more educated African will listen to a demonstration of the basic principles which underlie his musical practice.2We further demonstrated that from lots of available evidence the African is certainly conscious of a theory behind his musical practice, hence he may accept or reject certain tones as belonging or not belonging to his musical style,3 and does recognise such things as tonal centres, e.g. hombe, around which other notes of his musical scale revolve.4 Having not grown up in and with a tradition where the (western) system of reading and writing is the norm, the African may not be able to articulate these theoretical principles in unequivocal terms to a western researcher, particularly one working through informants.In our present study, we intend to show that a systematic analysis of the music of black Africa reveals an internal structural government of extraordinary order and symmetry. This study deals with the theory of melodic scales. Our examples will be taken from one area of Africa, the music of the Igbo of Nigeria; we have, however, shown elsewhere that examples of the same or a similar system operating in the music of other areas of black Africa abound in large numbers.5

Ethnomusicology, World Music and Analysis in African Music

“…Ekwueme (1980) understands this well when he writes: "In our present study, we intend to show that a systematic analysis of the music of black Africa reveals an internal structural government of extraordinary order and symmetry" (p. 89).…”