Participation in musicological research by scholars from different geocultural areas who specialize in the music of their own societies will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in the number of scholars in areal studies—a situation already evident in African musicology, an area of activity in which scholars who share a common concern for understanding the music of Africa participate, each from unique perspectives, backgrounds, and interests, but linked by common topical interests and a common concern for the collection, analysis, and systematization of data.

The writings of African scholars and their colleagues show that African musicology embraces (1) critical and analytical studies, which examine or exemplify musicological issues in the light of field data; (2) investigations that take into account the history, archaeology, and ethnology of Africa, or of specific areas in which fieldwork is undertaken; (3) developmental studies, which respond to the environment in which music is cultivated and practiced; and (4) the dissemination of information and materials on African music, both within and outside Africa.

The goals of African musicology are thus scholarly and humanistic, not only in terms of its quest for knowledge and understanding of human beings in Africa as makers and users of music, but also in regard to practical issues related to music as a language or mode of communication, music as an object of aesthetic interest, and music as culture.

Creative musicians and performers have always shared in these goals. Thus, in 1945, when the Nigerian musician Herbert Ogunde started to develop his musical drama, his aim was "to revive Yoruba music," which colonialists had downgraded; accordingly, composing new songs for old stories, he "transformed Yoruba musical forms by mixing indigenous instruments with others from elsewhere in the country" (Etherton 1982:45). He, and others like him, described as research the activity of looking for the traditional music and dance of their own culture. To them, research meant something pragmatic, the process of rediscovering their culture, which did not seem to them to require elaborate scholarly preparation.

A report on the Nigerian Institute of Music showed a similar interest in promoting music and research. Founded at Onitsha, in 1949, the institute had the primary object of promoting music in Nigeria. Its secretary, Udemesuo Onyido (also the Anglican supervisor of music at Abor), reported:

To stimulate public interest, the Institute organized an All-Eastern Nigeria Music Festival at Onitsha in October 1951, at which most of the best choirs in Eastern Nigeria took part. This festival proved such a success that in the following year, Music Festivals were organized in all the three regions of Nigeria (in the east, at Onitsha; in the west, at Ibadan; and in the north, at Zaria). In October 1954 an All-Nigerian Music Festival was held at Enugu under the auspices of the Institute. The success of these festivals, the most outstanding features of which are the indigenous

music performed, has induced the Institute to organize annual music festivals for the whole of the Federation of Nigeria. (Onyido 1955:62)

Pragmatic and scholarly dimensions of study

These activities affirm the status that African music acquired in both the colonial and postcolonial periods, for in addition to its role and function in traditional societies, it became an avenue for expressing consciousness of identity, a source for exploring new directions in creativity, and an object of study and research.

In the period when consciousness of the African heritage of culture began to spread, scholars held two concepts of research. First, there was pragmatic research, the simple process of rediscovering one's musical culture in the social environment, or looking for materials that have immediate practical value because they enhance one's consciousness of identity, or because they can be used creatively. This kind of research, which can be random, differs from applied research, which uses the results of systematic research. Pragmatic research usually stops on the level of data. It is used by collectors and others looking for specific information in the field.

Second, there was scholarly research, which seeks not only to discover or rediscover, but also to analyze, classify, evaluate, and interpret evidence. Because it requires academic preparation, it becomes more and more evident in African writing as musicians turn their attention from collecting information about traditional music to investigating the material and contexts of music.

The history of African writings on music shows constant interaction between the purely pragmatic and the purely scholarly, between collecting songs for educational or creative purposes and studying them musicologically. That guided or determined the shift from one position to the other, or led some musicians to combine both approaches related not only to the goals they set themselves, but also to the pressures and challenges of the social, cultural, and political environment, or response to Western praxis.

The periods of African music scholarship, 1920-1980

The factors that have stimulated African interest in the study of African music and nurtured the growth of African scholarship naturally differ from those that brought Western observers and scholars to Africa in the colonial period, and from those that generate interest among scholars abroad.

The history of Western scholarship in Africa is substantially a part of the history of comparative musicology and ethnomusicology, whereas African scholarship began in response to the challenge of colonialism and the need for developing consciousness of identity. It went through a period in which African writers applied the positive scholarly skills acquired in the process of acculturation before it gradually integrated itself into international scholarship in music. Accordingly, African scholarship underwent four periods of development: colonial foundation, 1920-1950; cultural awakening and revival, 1950-1960; a great transition, 1960-1970; and cultural development and studies, 1970-1980.

In view of the circumstances under which African scholarship in music developed, this review begins with African writings. Never having been collated, they are little known to musicological readers; the works of Western scholars in African studies are more fully known. I hope this review will pave the way for dialogue and partnership

Though this review could have been selective in respect to early African writings (highlighting only those that satisfy certain scholarly criteria), I have included almost everything that has come to my notice—first, because my interest has been principally in the subject matter, ideas, attitudes, and even the biases reflected in African writings; and second, because I believe that a historical view of African scholarship in music would be incomplete without the corroborative evidence in the sporadic writings of individuals who responded to the pressures and challenges that stimulated scholarly research. The history of a humanistic discipline cannot always be confined to the scholars' works, for many disciplines not only began in nonscholarly antecedents, but continue to be enriched by data provided by the interested public.

The observations on which the review is based are drawn not only from documentary sources, but also from personal knowledge of individuals, institutions, and cultural movements in Africa. Though I dwell now and then on individual scholars because of their contributions, my interest here lies in identifying significant developments in African musicology in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, and not in reviewing the state of musical studies in individual African countries or regions (for which, see Arom 1976:2-4).

The focus of this study is on musical scholarship, rather than on composition. Therefore, it does not discuss Western composers and composers of new African music (Omibiyi 1979), or composers active in preparing African hymns (Jones 1976), except when they also happen to write on African music. Similarly, it omits active musical performers, teachers, and festival promoters, except where their work had a direct bearing on the development of perspectives on African musicology, or had programmatic consequences for the institution of courses in African music.

Since the present state of African musicology is the result of the contributions made by both African and Western scholars, the review of African scholarship (which inevitably combines perspectives from African cultural values past and present, traditional forms of musical knowledge, and musical practice with the humanistic and scientific approaches characteristic of Western praxis) leads into a review of the role played by Western scholars' contributions to African musicology. I then enumerate the areas in which Africanists' work exemplifies general ethnomusicological theories and approaches, and review the practical programs of recording and documentation that emerged.

In 1881, when Edward Wylmot Blyden addressed Liberia College on "the aims and methods of a liberal education for African," he strongly recommended that the curriculum

the songs of our unsophisticated brethren as they sing of their history, as they tell of their traditions, of the wonderful and mysterious events of their tribal and national life, of the achievements of what we call their superstitions; we must lend a ready ear to the ditties of the Kroomen who pull our boats, of the Pesseh and Golah men who till our farms; we must read the compositions, rude as we may think them, of the Mandingoes and the Veys (Vai). (Blyden 1882)

Two factors made it difficult for these ideas to be taken seriously. As a result of the activities of the early missionaries (who preached against African cultures, and barred African converts from participating in their traditional music and dance), some Africans felt a prejudice against African music and dance. Educators of the colonial period looked at education largely as a tool of social change—which often meant progressive westernization. Accordingly, schools taught Western music of some sort, but ignored African music because it was "pagan" or "undeveloped." Materials for courses in this music were not available in the form of textbooks. Thus, institutional barriers blocked the study of African music in schools, and its use in Christian worship—barriers that could be broken down only through research that demonstrated the intrinsic values of this music and provided suitable instructional materials, and the creation of music for Christian worship.

Blyden's recommendations therefore had to await the growth of "cultural nationalism," the liberalization of colonial educational policy, a change in Christian missionaries' attitudes toward African cultures, and the emergence of a generation of literate Africans, committed to research and education in African music.

Colonial development and music: 1920-1950

Important foundations for scholarship in music were laid in the period 1920-1950, when the major colonial powers began to emphasize the development of human and material resources in the colonies. This emphasis created the need for better knowledge and understanding of colonial peoples. Accordingly, journals and magazines—including the Gold Coast Review, the Gold Coast Teachers' Journal, the Uganda Journnal, Tanganyika Notes and Records, Sudan Notes and Records, The Nigerian Teacher, and The Nigerian Field—provided a forum for literary and scientific contributions by colonial administrators, educators, missionaries, and local authors. This period saw the founding of international journals devoted to African affairs, languages and cultures, education, and development, providing other outlets for African writers.

Most African writers who published articles on music adopted a journalistic approach, reporting what they knew or felt as carriers of African traditions (Caluza 1931; Bansisa 1936). Others dealt with specific topics, like songs and lyrics (Sempebbwa 1948; Azu 1949), drums and other instruments (Addo 1932, 1933, 1934; Djan 1942; Kaggwa 1934), presented their observations on some aspect of music and dance (Traore 1942; Okeke 1936), or reported on the state of music in a given territory or of an ethnic group (Margai 1926; Kintu 1940).

The significance of these writers lies in what they symbolize, the information they provide, and their speculations and attitudes, rather than in their scholarly perspectives—for

In this period, another development that stimulated African interest in traditional music was the opening of prospects for education abroad. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a few enterprising individuals, with the sponsorship of certain bodies, had set a precedent for such studies. F. C. Coker (of Nigeria) studied music in Germany in 1874, followed by Ekundayo Phillips, who from 1911 to 1914 studied at Trinity College of Music (London), and in turn taught other aspiring musicians, including Fela Sowande, the eminent Nigerian composer and organist.

In the 1920s and 1930s, "native African youths... possessing intelligence and musical talent" studied in the United States. Among these were C. Kamba Simango (of Mozambique), an alumnus of Hampton Institute and Columbia University; Madikane Cole (of southeast Africa), also of Hampton Institute, who later revisited the United States with African musicians to give performances to benefit his missionary work on the East Coast; and Nicholas J. Ballanta (of Sierra Leone), a product of the Institute of Musical Art, New York Cuney-Hare 1936:34-35).

In addition to taking private lessons from African musicians, literate African musicians unable to go abroad immediately could also take advantage of correspondence courses and external examinations in Western music offered by institutions in London, including the Victoria College of Music, Trinity College of Music, and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. The diploma-testing facilities of these bodies were made available to countries in the British Empire. Local representatives were appointed to supervise the written examinations, and visiting examiners were sent around for the practical examinations. An announcement in the Gold Coast Teachers' Journal (1933:230) shows that official recognition was eventually given to this arrangement:

All good teachers spend some of their spare time studying. It is natural that they should wish to test themselves by entering for some recognized public examination, so that they may know exactly how their studies are progressing.... The Associated Board has just opened its examinations to West Africa. The local secretary is Mr. W. E. Ward, Achimota, who will provide on application, free copies of the syllabus and full details of the examinations etc. At a small charge, he will also supply specimen papers, copies of prescribed music and other matter. For the present only written

examinations will be held, the papers being sent and marked in England. Practical examinations may be held in future if there are enough candidates to justify the Board in sending an examiner from England—but not for a year or two. Nevertheless these examinations are easily the best available in the Gold Coast, and there are no better examinations available anywhere. They provide a regular, carefully graded course to the highest level; and they should be a means of improving the musicianship of the teachers and pupils of West Africa.

The contribution of George Ballanta

Of the trained African musicians who turned to the systematic study of their own music in this period, two deserve particular mention: Nicholas George Ballanta of Sierra Leone (born in 1894) and Ephraim Amu of Ghana(born in 1899).

A biographical note on George Ballanta, written by the editor of Musical America ("Mephisto's Musings" 1926:6), gives some idea of the preparation that enabled him to adopt a scholarly approach to African music. He

began his study of music alone, and without any other aid than Sir John Stainer's book on harmony for which he sent to London, he acquired considerable knowledge of the art in his native country. He made such progress that he was able, prior to 1921, through submitting compositions by mail, to pass the intermediary examination of Durham University, England, for the degree of Bachelor of Music.

Music study and fieldwork in the United States

Ballanta began studying at the Institute of Musical Art in 1922, and received a diploma there in 1924. One of his compositions was played at a student recital in New York in 1923, and he had previously conducted some of his works at a "Negro pageant" in Symphony Hall, Boston. Sponsored by the Penn Normal Industrial and Agricultural School in St. Helena (South Carolina), he studied African-American music, not only in St. Helena, but also in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The editor of Musical America concludes his biographical sketch with the information that "while at Penn School, he recorded 103 spirituals of St. Helena which are now available in one volume." This book of transcriptions of spirituals was published in 1925.

Fieldwork in Africa

The knowledge that Ballanta gained from his study of African-American music and his experience in collecting and transcribing music in the United States prepared him

In a published report on his trip (1926), Ballanta claims to have traveled more than 11,000 kilometers during two years' research in West Africa. On this field trip, he collected more than two thousand examples of African songs from his own country (Sierra Leone), Liberia, Senegal, Guinea, Gold Coast Ghana, and Nigeria. Because he was a composer, he took an interest in technical aspects of the music, such as scales, melody, rhythm, harmony, and form, the relationship between speech tones and melodic contours, and prosody and musical instruments. He observed the effect of social change on the music of West Africa, and tried to classify the region based on the presence or absence of "Western or Eastern influence." He claimed to have been objective, despite his background, for he noted "it is essential for an investigator to dispossess himself of his acquired conceptions if he is to appreciate African music."

Some of his observations—on form and structure (such as call and response, speech tone, and melodic contour) and the problems these pose in hymns translated into African languages, drum language, and the nature of African musical traditions—anticipate those made by subsequent scholars. It is evident from his report, however, that he was not able to achieve complete objectivity, for he makes inaccurate statements and assertions, like "All African melodies are constructed upon harmonic background," and "Duple time is the only time used by Africans" (Ballanta 1926:10-11).

Broad studies of sound structure

Ballanta's interest was clearly in comparative studies—in providing an overview of African music, rather than detailed ethnographic studies of individual musical cultures. Though he took note of the use of music in customary rites (like puberty festivals and funerals), he did not investigate any correlations between "use" and "structure."

In another brief article, "Music of the African Races," Ballanta elaborated on his observations on scales and melody, and modified his comments on harmony. He was particularly concerned with "the principles of tonal expression" in African music, with "tone progression and tone combination," which he believed "are determined by perception of a principal tone and an interval of association"—that is, "the interval which exists between the principal tone and the tone next in importance in the whole mass of tones used for tonal expression" and which "for all purposes is the perfect fourth in African music," opposed to "the perfect fifth in Western music" (1931-1932:441-444). It is obvious that he did not take heptatonic usages into account.

The need for studies that, going beyond the sporadic writings of the period 1920-1950 and the initial efforts of George Ballanta and Ephraim Amu, would be more systematic and extensive in coverage (but with more clearly defined objectives)

On the initiative of Kofi Abrefa Busia. Ghanaian Professor of Sociology, I was offered a faculty appointment in 1952 as research fellow in African Studies, to set up in his department a program of research in African music, language, folklore, dance, and drama. Busia felt that what was needed was institutional sponsorship of research on African music and related arts, and that his department could make a small beginning. Such an arrangement would ensure not only that research would be carried out over an extended period, but that in the process, materials and theoretical perspectives would be developed, to a level that would permit the establishment of courses in African music and related arts at the degree level at the University of Ghana. He believed that the home he provided for the arts would be temporary, and that the timing of their formation into a separate department would depend on the progress of the research.

Lumping the arts together was deliberate, though it seemed at first sight to ask too much of one person. It was intended to emphasize the unity of the arts in African contexts, while giving the programsome flexibility in topics of research. Since language, folklore, dance, and drama are integrated into music and musical performance, I interpreted the terms of reference as an invitation to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the study of African music, drawing not only from the materials and perspectives of these subjects, but also from cognate disciplines (history, linguistics, social anthropology), to which I had had some exposure in addition to my training in music.

Study of relationships in music making

The school of linguistics to which I was then drawn was that of J. R. Firth (University of London), who, using formal and contextual techniques, emphasized analysis and synthesis. His concept of prosodic phonology and levels of abstraction, and his principle of contextualization (inspired by the ethnographic approach of Malinowski) seemed pertinent to my materials. As Firth states in his "Techniques of Semantics" and other papers in which he elaborated on his approach (Firth 1951), when the principle of context of situation is applied in linguistic terms, it enables one to deal with meaning on an empirical basis, for "in that context are human participants, what they say and what is going on." He describes any study that proceeds this way as a situational and experiential study. I found that such an approach could also be applied to the study of music as an event, letting a musicologist deal, on different levels of abstraction, with formal and ethnographic materials related to music.

Another reason this approach appealed to me was that unlike my colleagues in sociology, I had as the subject of my research program music, not society or culture. The latter was the context in which I found and studied my material, not the object of my study; hence it was my task to search for a conceptual framework that would make music central in my thinking, rather than something on the periphery. Accordingly, while my colleagues looked at the network of social relations in individual societies in their totality, I looked at relationships in music making. Such relationships—not only those of kinship, but also those of musical relationships—demanded observation of the distribution of musical roles and responsibilities.

While my colleagues looked at different social groups or units of social organization, I looked at musical traditions. I was aware that musical studies could contribute to some extent to the understanding of culture and society, but I regarded this as a by-product, a secondary objective. It was something that would grow out of my research, since I was also concerned with social processes related to music, for my view of music was not limited to its perception as an aural phenomenon. Experience

Nketia's early research objectives

Since the music I had planned to study did not exist in written form, and could be reached only through performance, I decided to pursue five objectives. 1.

The focus of my field research would be on musical events, including any event that incorporated music. My primary data would be drawn from observing and documenting such events in selected societies.

Formation of organizations to promote African arts

The popularization of traditional music and dance received similar attention in other African countries, for the cultural awakening that played an important part in the struggle for independence in Ghana appeared in varying forms in other parts of the continent. It led to the formation of societies for the preservation and promotion of African culture, such as the West African Cultural Society, which had branches in Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, paralleling Présence Africaine in Paris.

It was in the spirit of this awakening that Alick Nkhata, program organizer of what was then known as Central African Broadcasting Station (Ludaka), appealed to people in Central Africa to form listeners' clubs to "deal with indigenous music," including makwaya and other contemporary forms, because "the time has come when we must take steps to preserve our music" (quoted in Nkhata 1952:17-20).

Phillip Gbeho: bimusical visionary

The development of a university-based program did not stifle individual research, for there was an expansion in individual contributions similar in perspectives to those of earlier decades. Stress continued to be laid on training specialist teachers of African music and educating the public through lecture-demonstrations.

In Ghana, public education was spearheaded by Phillip Gbeho, a master drummer, competent in the Ewe tradition. He believed in the unity of African expressive forms, and insisted that the concept of music in Africa includes singing, drumming, and dancing: "They are all one and the same thing, and must not be separated"; when he spoke of a person's "being musical," he meant that the person understood them all (1952:31).

As chair of an interim committee for an arts council set up by the government of Ghana, Gbeho organized performances of traditional music and dance on important state occasions, and gave lecture-demonstrations around the country, sometimes in collaboration with the Department of Extramural Studies (University of Ghana). What he had to say, however, was based on the analysis of his experience, rather than on new research. Since his objective was to whip up enthusiasm and appreciation for traditional music (an objective he had furthered during his sojourn in London, as a student at Trinity College of Music), he always spoke in a popular style. The texts of his lectures were essentially the same as those he delivered in London, published as a series of articles in West African Review (1952-1953) and the African Music Society Newsletter and Journal.

In lectures on the analysis and interpretation of the music of African drum ensembles, Gbeho recognized the importance of approaches that take into account the structural roles of not only bells, rattles, and masterdrum, but also cross-rhythms emerging from dancers' kinetic expressions. Consciousness of cross-rhythms, he said, is a

serious point in our music. It enables us to dance effectively with grace and ease. To do this you must learn to hear the rhythms of the drums, the gongong, the rattles and so on, and combine them with handclapping. An African learns to be conscious

mentally of every instrument employed in an African orchestra and this has a tremendous effect on his dance; all the various muscles of the body act differently to the rhythms of the instruments. (1952:31)

Though a staunch supporter of traditional music, Gbeho never rebelled against Western music, or suggested that it should be deemphasized. He believed in bimusicality, because bimusicality made sense in terms of his background and experience. He did not believe in syncretism, however. His unbelief set him apart from Amu. He maintained this position for a long time, but changed toward the end of his career. He probably did not have the same creative vision as Amu, for the syncretic music he composed was unimaginative or technically uninteresting. He was more a performer than a composer.

In pursuit of the ideal of bimusicality, Gbeho turned his attention and energy in the 1960s to developing what might seem a paradox, a national symphony orchestra, with funds from a nationalist government that had made the assertion of African cultural identity its avowed aim. When he created a national anthem for Ghana, he wrote it in the Western idiom, and campaigned successfully for its acceptance by the government. In his mind, he could reconcile these contradictions because he believed musical cultures could coexist in the same environment—a coexistence tacitly but widely accepted by many institutions and individuals all over Africa, by church and school, by radio and television, by nightclubs and other places of entertainment, by foreign embassies and cultural centers (which arrange or sponsor concerts of Western music by visiting artists from their home countries). African musicology must find a way of dealing with this situation, in particular with the principles of accommodation that make the coexistence of these and the varieties of syncretic and ethnic musical expressions possible.

Wilberforce Echezona: radio broadcasting

In addition to those who worked on their own in response to growing interest in African music, others—associated with cultural institutions such as museums, schools, and colleges—responded in different ways to particular needs, or to the challenges and opportunities they met in the course of their work.

One such person was Wilberforce Echezona (of Nigeria), who applied his training in Western music to the study of the music of his own people, the Ibo. While he taught music at St. Marks Teacher Training College (Akwa), he did much for school music in Eastern Nigeria by organizing music festivals there. Ekwueme describes him as a pioneer, "not only in promoting the standard of music in churches and schools, but also in encouraging indigenous traditional music and compositions by local choirmasters" (1972:389).

For the Eastern Nigerian Radio Station, Echezona, drawing on his fieldwork, planned and produced regular radio programs on Ibo music and musical instruments

Seth Cudjoe: prescriptively notating Ewe drumming

Of the nonuniversity-based contributions in the list above, four deserve mention because of their efforts to provide substantial studies based on research. The first of these consists of two essays by the physician Seth Cudjoe, who as a collaborator of Phillip Gbeho set himself the task of providing a scholarly exposition of Ewe drumming (Cudjoe 1953, 1958). He distinguished the strokes and the tones they produce, and suggested a notation suitable for them, for he believed that notating orally transmitted African music is one of the important tasks of African musicians: African music, he felt, must be accessible to musicians, not only through recordings, but also through notation. His interest in this matter was not in descriptive notation per se, but in the possibility that musicians could learn Ewe drumming from prescriptive notation.

Other Ghanaians, including Gbeho (though he did not leave posterity any transcriptions of Ewe music), shared this point of view. He implored African musicians to take an active part in research in African music. To do this effectively, he suggested, African musicians should "learn to read and write music thoroughly, for it is not sufficient to write down the words of a piece of music and the history connected with it" (1952:32-33).

Interest in notation was high in Ghana at this time, for the possibility of using staff notation with one or two additional symbols had been demonstrated by Amu (1933) and Riverson (1933). Though everybody was aware that the pitches of African music did not quite match those of tempered tuning, this awareness did not deter African musicians from using Western notation (just as the Roman alphabet has served for writing African languages), for it was thought that African s who knew their own tradition could interpret the pitches in their own terms. The notation of rhythm, however, gave rise to differences of opinion, leading Amu and Riverson to offer explications of their approach at a conference of the Ghana Music Society in 1958 (Nketia 1958b).

Unlike these musicians, however, Cudjoe was adventurous and innovative, for the notation he suggested for drum music was not staff notation, but a combination of pulse notation and numerical notation. In it, each pulse of the standard Ewe bell pattern is assigned a number from 1 to 12. Drumstrokes that occur on each pulse are represented by symbols derived from the figure of a drumstick, the area of the drumhead hit by the stick, and the type of stroke (whether it is open or free, damped or muted, and so on).

Analytically minded, Cudjoe provided an exposition of cross-rhythms in Ewe drum music, particularly as exemplified in agbadza drumming. He recognized the "additive" nature of the rhythms by indicating on the pulseline the positions where the sounds of each drum pattern fell, but resolved them into divisive groups in relation to the hand clapping.

As an African art critic, Cudjoe appreciated the role the arts play in African societies; hence, though his main interest was in the analysis of Ewe drumming, he also drew attention to the social importance of music in Africa. He did not, however, follow up his interest in music, or supply further expositions of Ewe drumming. Because the exigencies of his medical practice did not afford him time for systematic research in other fields, he was content to play the role of catalyst and critic.

In the decade of transition from colonial rule to independence (when many new nation-states emerged in Africa), African s' contributions to the study of African music continued to expand, for the cultural revival that had characterized the previous decade became institutionalized in many African countries. Culture assumed a new importance as an area of governmental action, and departments or ministries of culture (or sometimes of culture and youth, or of sports and tourism) or arts councils were created to plan and implement nationwide cultural programs. National occasions, including the celebration of independence and its anniversary, invariably featured performances of traditional music and dance in national capitals and cities, and the formation of national dance companies became a common practice.

As the new nations tried to establish political, economic, and cultural ties, pan-Africanism and African unity became important issues. Pan-African arts festivals and colloquia were organized to affirm the universality of African cultural experiences, to foster pride in African cultural heritages, and to encourage the scholarly study, promotion, preservation, and creative use of African traditions. Because of the colonial experience, and the realization that some of the best exponents of culture belonged to a generation that might pass away without leaving posterity their knowledge or expertise, emphasis was laid on preservation and continuity.

The long-term development of the musical life and cultural image of each country through the creation of appropriate institutions for promotion, education, and research in music and related arts became a matter of national concern. The period 1960-1970 was therefore a period of institutional development, in which musicology came to be accepted, as both an academic discipline and something that could be of practical value to cultural development. In some African societies, institutional support for programs of music therefore became a major concern.

Some countries, such as Senegal and Upper Volta, preferred to set up research units under the aegis of their ministries of culture or education. Though the lack of trained nationals was initially a problem, foreign experts were hired as an interim measure, solely to collect, document, and archive "the national patrimony" of music, dance, drama, and visual arts, ensuring that they had local assistants, who would receive on-the-job training and eventually take over from them.

Teaching and research interrelationships

For the interdisciplinary study of African history, culture, and the arts, institutes and centers of African studies established in this decade at the universities of Ghana, Ife, Lagos, Nairobi, and Zambia provided avenues for musical research.

The goals that inspired pioneers of musicology in Africa in the colonial and postcolonial periods continued to provide the basis for musicology in the 1970s, for decolonization and development—forces that confronted independent African states in the 1960s—continued to affect the arts. A new emphasis on cultural studies as an avenue for accelerating the process of decolonization gave further impetus to music and musicology. So did the formulation of national cultural policies and the planning of cultural development, which in the 1970s became one of the central concerns of African governments. In 1974, at the intergovernmental conference on cultural policies held in Accra under the auspices of UNESCO and the Organization of African Unity, the need for preserving, promoting, and presenting traditional music was confirmed in a resolution asking UNESCO to formulate and implement a ten-year plan to develop music and the performing arts in Africa.

As a result of all these trends, musicology continued to be recognized at the governmental level in some countries, both as an academic discipline, and as an enterprise that—through its primary activities (collecting, recording, archiving, analyzing, and building up a body of knowledge that could be applied constructively to nation-building, especially in training and educating future generations of musicians, educating the general public, and developing consciousness of identity and a sense of nationhood)—could contribute to cultural development. It was also believed that the results of musicological research could stimulate new directions in creativity and performance. These goals continued to inspire much of the research undertaken in the 1970s, and to shape current trends in African musicology.

The broad areas of research, and some of the topics dealt with, overlapped with those of the previous decade, while the primary focus of scholars continued to be music and musicology, for as Wachsmann observed, in African musicology music is the "primary subject," not "one of the secondary ones." This did not mean that considerations of the sociocultural context were ignored, for as Wachsmann pointed out later in the same article, "With music and musicology so strongly in the foreground, it seems as if these pressures leave little room for anthropology. But this is deceptive. It is simply that anthropology has come to serve musicology" (1966b).

Accordingly, the institutional arrangement for musicological studies almost everywhere in the 1970s made musicology an integral part of the programs of departments and schools of music and institutes of fine art, or multidisciplinary institutes

Even in the Western world, nurturing nonwestern musical studies in departments of anthropology, with a few notable exceptions, ceased to be the convention. Since about 1960, the trend

has been reversed, and as the musicians and musicologists have begun to espouse ethnomusicology, the anthropologists, in the narrow sense of the term, have appeared largely to disengage themselves from its study. It is the one case in which the prefix 'ethno-' signals an advance in scholarship and an anthropological withdrawal. (Freedman 1958:59)

Though all these persons approached African music from a musicological point of view, they all tended to see problems in African music from both a general and a particular perspective relative to their interests and specializations. Thus, composers like Lazarus Ekwueme, Akin Euba, and Samuel Akpabot (all of Nigeria), Atta Annan Mensah, Zinzendorf Nayo, and Ato Turkson (all of Ghana), Joseph Kyagambiddwa (of Uganda), and Ashenafi Kebede (of Ethiopia) took particular interest in searching for definitions of African idioms, in categorizing creative output, in observing instrumentation, form, and structure in relation to creative process, or (in the case of Lazarus Ekwueme) in formulating or applying Western theory or analytical models, such as the Schenkerian model, to African materials (Ekwueme 1975-1976, 1972).

Similarly, those with backgrounds in performance, such as Nissio Fiagbedzi (of Ghana), Akin Euba and Tunji Vidal (both of Nigeria), and Kazadi wa Mukuna (of Zaïre), tended to concern themselves with the intrinsic values of African music, or with problems of musical communication and aesthetics, or of philosophy (Fiagbedzi

Others—Mwesa Mapoma (of Zambia), Washington Omondi (of Kenya), Samuel Akpabot and Meki Nzewi (both of Nigeria), Francis Bebey and Pie-Claude Ngumu (both of Cameroon), Ben Aning and Atta Annan Mensah (both of Ghana)—also looked at problems of music, culture, and communication, or of music and related arts, sometimes both synchronically and diachronically (Nzewi 1979, 1984).

The growth of musicology in Africa was stimulated by African musicians' and writers' responses to social and political transformations on the continent, but Western contributions to African musicology seem to have been stimulated largely by Western

The spirit of adventure and discovery, what Alan Merriam called the Western mania for collecting, played no less significant part in the early history of Western exploration of African musical life and resources, for African music is an art "forced upon the notice of the European as soon as he leaves the steamer and before he sets foot on African soil," a mode of expression "universally popular and universally practised" (Ward 1927:199).

The state of scholarship in 1965

Lionel John Palmer Gaskin's Bibliography of Music in Africa (1965), incorporating bibliographies by Varley (1936), Merriam (1951), and Thieme (1964), gives a good idea of the Western scholars and observers involved in exploring musical life and sources in Africa. It lists about 1,700 authors, including anonymous writers and authors of institutional articles and monographs. Less than 4 percent of these authors are African musicians and writers—a fact that shows both how much Western observers and scholars have contributed to African musicology, and the extent of Western interest in African musical life and sources. However, of the Western authors, slightly less than 2 percent are musicologists. This proportion includes comparative musicologists and ethnomusicologists who looked at African materials, or provided conceptual tools applied or tested in the field.

The bibliography lists not only books and articles on African music, instruments, and dance, but also references to these subjects in other books and 329 periodicals (in English and other European languages) that carried articles on Africa. Of 3,370 entries, 2,653 are references to music in different countries and regions of Africa; references to musical instruments and dancing are 768 and 321, respectively.

Since Gaskin believed "most musicologists would approach music and musical instruments primarily from a regional point of view," the entries in his work are listed geographically, beginning with those that deal with Africa in general (165 items), followed by those that deal with countries and regions or specific societies located in those countries. About sixteen countries have up to twelve entries on random topics, while ten others have twenty-one entries. Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda have forty to sixty entries, while South Africa and Zaïre have well over one hundred. As might be expected, it is difficult to get from these sources a comprehensive picture of music in any one country, since they often represent the casual observations of individuals who happened to be in those countries on missions unrelated to music.

Though the articles and monographs on subjects such as music and ritual, work and leisure, festivals, and so forth are not classified, two subjects are singled out for special listing: dancing and musical instruments. The entries for these are arranged geographically. In the case of musical instruments, a separate listing is provided for each major class of instrument. Drums attracted the greatest attention (213 entries), while chordophones and aerophones ranked second and third (ninety-six and sixty-one entries, respectively). Xylophones, mbira, and nonmelodic idiophones attracted about equal attention (thirty-six, thirty-five, and thirty-two entries); taken together, they come next after drums.

It was thus African percussive instruments (which had a wider distribution than other instruments) that attracted the greatest attention; however, organology was the subject least understood, not only because of the apparent strangeness of the sounds and textures, but also because of the assumption that the aesthetic principles or critical values of Western music provided a basis valid for approaching the music of other cultures.

Though the colonial environment facilitated fieldwork and the accumulation of data on African music, it did not encourage the reciprocity that we expect of scholars, for there was no question about the legitimacy of Western researchers' fieldwork, since the principle and practice of studying other people's cultures had long been recognized and established. Institutional support for such research was available overseas, while avenues for scholars' interaction were provided through journals and membership in scholarly organizations or educational enterprises. These provisions, which strengthened African musicology in the West, were lacking in Africa during the colonial period.

A similar picture emerges when we turn to collecting. Most collectors did not have qualms about recording and publishing samples of traditional African music for Western markets. Copyright in folklore enjoyed no legal protections; and because colonial dependencies were not nations, but aggregates of "tribes," the notion that the music of traditional societies in a given territory could constitute a national heritage had not come into prominence. Africa itself seemed to have no need for such recordings, and in any case it lacked the resources to record and document its own music. Companies that published recorded materials for African markets paid more attention to new forms—popular music!—which had wide support in contemporary societies, for traditional music was not commercially viable.

It seemed natural, therefore, that in the colonial period, the stance of most Western scholars and collectors—even those who resided in Africa—should mostly favor institutions, readers, and the public in their home countries. Until the situation

This situation was not peculiar to colonial Africa, for, as Alan Lomax observed, most scholars of the 1960s were working to publish books and articles that, "like a good deal of research, have often been of more benefit to the researchers than to the people whose lives they closely concerned" (1968:9). Except among teachers, missionaries, and musicologists committed to education and development in Africa, and particularly attached to the countries where they worked, what we now regard as a moral or ethical issue was not then held to be so.

The political changes that took place in the 1960s introduced new factors into African musicology. These factors called for a new reciprocity between Africa and the West. Whereas in the colonial period outsiders saw Africa as a place from which to extract data, the new situation required them and their successors to see themselves not just in terms of what they might take back to Europe and America, but also in terms of the value that such data might have for Africa itself, then in the process of rediscovering, reinventing, and reasserting its own cultural values.

As a consequence of these changes, the open-door policy of colonial governments was curtailed—an action felt by field workers who had previously had unlimited (and often virtually free) access to music and musical life in African societies. In a footnote to an editorial in African Music, Hugh Tracey referred to experiencing "considerable difficulty" in getting adequate amounts of publishable data, owing to what he described as "the increasingly disturbed political situation throughout the continent," which, in many territories, had hindered or blocked his work (1963:5).

Since the primary challenge of political independence was national development in all spheres of life, African musicology and its basic activities were to be seen as areas of particular significance to cultural development, able to benefit from international collaboration. To ensure that copies of materials such as tape recordings would be deposited or sent back to the country with any relevant publications, theses, or dissertations, governments set up regulations to enable specified official bodies to identify visiting researchers, and to encourage them to collaborate or keep in touch with appropriate local institutions.

While some scholars interpreted this move as merely a requirement of their professional ethics, others welcomed the opportunity of making a contribution, however small, to the African awareness of the African heritage. In addition to depositing materials, some scholars (like Gerhard Kubik) tried to share the outcome of their researches through lecture tours, while others accepted African governments' invitations to record and document their national musical cultures; these included Herbert Pepper (who worked on the national aural archives of Senegal), Simha Arom (who over an extended period worked in the Central African Republic), and Jim Rosellini (who set up the visual and aural archive of Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso).

Discographies

In addition to individuals' contributions, some institutional responses to the new political situation emerged in the capitals of former colonial powers, which began to see cultural development as an area for technical assistance.

Within Radio France Internationale, departments and national institutions of the French government established an office of electronic cooperation (Office de

Conceived as country profiles of traditional music and dance, the discographies provided not only a catalogue of recordings, but also information on the state of musicological research and documentation in each country. Accordingly, the plan for the volumes included introductory essays on historical backgrounds, institutions concerned with music and music research, bibliographies of music and dance, relevant ethnographic works, catalogues of musical instruments, filmography, expositions on selected topics of musicological interest, lists of ethnic groups and performers, and the subject matter of the recordings. Profiles for all Francophone countries were projected. The first two, devoted to Mali and Upper Volta, came out in 1978. By 1982, nine of them had been compiled and published. The discographies incorporate those of Merriam, Tracey, and locally available sources.

Though in the 1960s the idea of preparing discographies of what had already been accumulated seemed all right as an immediate step, the pace of change suggested a different strategy to Hugh Tracey, whose field collecting made him more forward looking than backward looking, for he was more concerned with what had not been recorded (and might be lost forever) than with what had already been recorded and documented. In his view, what Africa needed was not reciprocity on the part of Western scholars and collectors, but their direct involvement in local research and education:

One criterion which must certainly predominate, and not only in music, is that of relevance to Africa. Without this, non-African research in Africa will have to be seen as mere collecting, not giving.

Of all the books and articles written about African music, one wonders how many are of use, or in use, in Africa. (1972:5)

Tracey believed, however, that for contributions to knowledge of African music

The expounding of the theory of African musical techniques to non-Africans will continue to have an exotic and intellectual virtue, as well the teaching of non-African music to African s. The heart and soul of the matter on this continent is more direct. It is to find a body of articulate men and women...who will undertake the discipline of actual performance and have the ability to convey their knowledge to African s in terms related to African instruments, modality and circumstances. (1966-1967a:5)

Tracey directed his editorials not only to musicologists (with whom he disagreed on goals and emphasis), and to scholars pursuing the study of African music "as a means of acquiring merit in the intellectual world of the universities" (as he put it), but also to urban African s "on the brink of cultural genocide" because of their neglect of their indigenous music.

The Codification and Textbook Project

To remedy this situation, Tracey in the late 1960s proposed a plan, the Codification and Textbook Project. Covering all of sub-Saharan Africa, it would •

establish "accepted and local terms suited to African phenomena";

The plan would cover a period of ten years. In the first five years, teams in each country would collect data, aiming to get one recorded item per 10,000 people; in the second five years, experts would analyze the collected materials, prepare samples for the tome, and write the textbook. The International Library of African Music, based in South Africa, directed by Tracey himself, would be the principal coordinating body, the central depository for all the recordings, responsible for publishing the tome and the textbook.

The growth of a scholarly discipline depends not only on the quality and scope of the materials it deals with, but also on the extent to which its theories and methods are progressively refined in the light of new data, solutions to problems, and advances in knowledge contributed by cognate disciplines. These often go hand in hand with institutional support for research and related programs, an increase in the number

The history of African musicology outlined in this review is a history of growth that has taken place since the 1920s almost simultaneously within and outside Africa, and which needs to be consolidated and expanded and, in certain respects, reoriented to enhance its further development as a field of international scholarship and cooperation. Many aspects of this history are complementary, for on the African side it is largely a history of growth in the number of scholars, in institutional development, and response to the pressures and challenges of the African environment and Western praxis, while on the Western side it is largely a history of expansion in documentation, changing perspectives, and differentiation in fields of focus relative to individual interests and backgrounds.

In retrospect the decade 1960-1970 seems to have been the most exciting period of all for music and musicology in Africa, for the events of the decade established a bond between the study of music as an art (approached from the viewpoint of its theory and practice) and music as a scholarly discipline and a focus of research. Because of this, the history of musicology in Africa is bound up with the institutional development for the study of the theory and practice of music, while the history of music, and musicology are an integral part of the intellectual and cultural history of post-colonial Africa.

Because of the importance African s attach to cultural studies and cultural development, African musicology will probably continue to receive support from future generations of African musicians. The music of many societies remains to be studied in depth, but from national and pan-African festivals, the work of African radio organizations, ministries of culture, and university institutions, accumulations of recorded data continue to grow. There will be room for both individual initiative and teamwork through which typologies of musical usages and features can be established, both for specific areas and subregions, and for the geocultural region as a whole.

A problem that musicology in Africa may have to face may not be just its lack of trained personnel, but also the lack of a reasonable balance between practical and scholarly goals, between the immediate requirements of cultural development programs and issues that may have no immediate application. More time and energy may be spent in recording music and collecting information for specific projects than in analyzing and writing up such materials, especially when the initial pressure of a dissertation or some other external pressure is out of the way. Alternatively, pressure from academic colleagues may lead an aspiring scholar away from the priorities of development to speculations on philosophy and aesthetics, or on theories of communication.

When scholars only look inward (and not outward), they run the risk of insularity inherent in regional specialization. Though African scholars have tried to minimize this risk by seeking formal links with international scholarship, it is important that this shows up also in the perspectives they bring, not only to African musicology, but also to musicology in general, for it is only when they deal with the implications of their findings for specific issues in musicology, or for the understanding of music as a cultural phenomenon and a worldwide art, that they can play an active role in the development of the discipline as a whole.

Narrowing the gap between communities

It is essential that what Wachsmann described as "the gap" between African scholars and their Western colleagues—a gap created by attitudes inherited from the colonial past, and by narrow definitions of ethnomusicology by scholars who still regard it as "a purely Western phenomenon" (Nettl 1983:9)—continue to be bridged though

For the same reason, African musicology of the future must take full cognizance of the outcome of the investigations of scholars (especially in the Caribbean and Latin America) who deal with African and Africa-related materials, and vice versa. A few scholars specializing in musicology in Africa, such as Kazadi wa Mukuna and Gerhard Kubik, have carried their investigations farther into Latin America, just as some Latin Americans interested in African rituals have extended their investigations to relevant parts of Africa.

As far as Western praxis goes, the issues in African musicology, being both theoretical and practical, call for contributions to both areas. The disciplinary affiliations of scholars and their musical sensitivity, plus the nature of the African musical materials and the changing African scene, will always raise theoretical issues or problems of methodology and interpretation. It is important that African musicology in the West continue to respond to these, though they may not always be of immediate relevance to the practical issues of cultural development, or to the problems of meaning encountered by African s in the contexts of music making.

Always critical of its own methods, Western musicology persists in approaching, in the light of new ideas, the ever-widening vision of humanity and the proper place of the West in the postcolonial world community. This mechanism will continue to shape African musicology in the West, as scholars become aware of the international dimension of their discipline. Ideas emanating from responses to the Western environment of African musicology may not only provoke discussion by African s, but also stimulate ideas that may enhance the quest for an African-centered approach to African musicology, "the search after wholeness of vision" that Wachsmann (1970) believed characterized African musicology after the 1960s.

The practicality of music demands that Western scholars not lose sight of the implication of their study for other musicians, and for those interested in the cultural dimensions of music, for as Richard Schlatter points out (1965), humanist scholars not only analyze and describe, but reassess, reintegrate, rediscover, and make available "the materials and the blueprints" with which their "contemporaries can build their own culture." Until the 1960s, "contemporaries" meant those in the Western world, but by the late twentieth century, Western musicians and scholars specializing in