SAMUS : South African Journal of Musicology

Chronicle

Africa has consistently captured the imagination of the Western world with a mixed bag of results. Grim realities as a consequence of such engagement are too many, diverse and indeed obvious to recount. Culture has been part of the West-Africa axis as an object of vilification, appropriation and painstaking study in diverse forms and fields. It is to the latter that my interest lies as I explore the contents of this book.

In view of the paucity of published material for the teaching and learning of the musical arts (Music, Dance and Drama) in African schools, the two volumes of this book should be welcome news for 'the majority of educators in South Africa, who are not trained in the musical arts, yet have to teach the Arts and Culture learning area in the General Education and Training band of the National Curriculum (Grades R-9)' (Smit 2006). Nzewi should be admired for his effort in making this addition to the literature on African music education. Nzewi states that 'The aim of the entire series is to provide instructional materials for musical arts education that derives primarily from African practice-based educational perspectives, theoretical principles and human experiences' (Vol.1, viii). He is emphatic that 'This series derives from the original indigenous philosophies, theories, and learning methods of Africa' (Ibid). This raises the first major problem I have with the series. I am not really convinced that the content and methodology of both volumes of this book truly reflect original indigenous philosophies, theories, and learning methods of Africa. This will be discussed later. Nzewi uses a unit-based system in this series as a framework for providing knowledge and guidelines about African musical arts. He also mentions and discusses five concepts, each presented as a unit, on which all teaching and learning of African musical arts, informed by African indigenous knowledge systems, must be based. These concepts are listed as follows: Rhythm; Pitch, tone and melody; Sources of musical sound; Societal need, utilization and presentation; and Ensemble.