Containing details of 390 L.P. and E.P. recordings, African Music on LP: An Annotated Discography contributed to the scholarship of African music at a time when very little had been written. ...Organized by record label and arranged in alphabetical order, Allen P. Merriam assesses the stylistic characteristics of each recording, providing new insights on the subject and the recording industry at the time of publication African Music on LP also contains 18 indexes cross-referencing each of the records.
It is no more than a truism to point out once again that much of social science and other research in African studies is devoted to problems of change—and quite rightly so. The greatest share of this ...research, however, is today focused on urban studies. Rural areas are seldom brought into the equation since the flow of international power comes primarily from the cities. Yet it is the country which ultimately provides the people for the cities; it is the country upon which the cities must count for foodstuffs and other supplies; and it is country people, as well as city people, who influence national governments via the ballot. Thus in one sense, at least, the countryside is a microcosm of the city, and what is happening there should give us different but equally valuable perspectives on change. It was thus with special anticipation that I returned, in May and June of 1973, to the village of Lupupa Ngye, located in what is now the Eastern Kasai Region of the Republic of Zaire. In 1959-60, my wife, two small children and I spent almost a year there engaged in ethnographic, ethnological, and ethnomusicological research. My purposes were traditional ones in anthropology: to renew old ties, to attempt to fill in gaps in my understanding of village life and thought and to see how my friends had fared and how much, and in what ways, they and their way of life had changed in the intervening thirteen years.
An indication of one way in which musical investigation can be used to support anthropological theory. Hypothesis: When 2 human groups in sustained contact have a number of characteristics in common ...in a particular aspect of culture, exchange of ideas will be more frequent than if the characteristics of those aspects differ markedly from one another. The hypotheses is tested by examining the music acculturative situation which existed (1) between Western culture and the Flathead Indians of Western Montana and (2) Ur Africa south of the Sahara with special reference to the Belgian Congo. The Flatheads' musical instruments have sustained physical changes generally attributable to contact with European manufacture. While the materials and method of manufacture have undergone change, there is nothing to indicate that the musical function has changed at the same time. Though pressures have been instituted in urging Flatheads to learn and accept European instruments, the new instruments and techniques have been kept separate from traditional music. The problem is whether in the musical systems themselves there are factors which prevent or accelerate exchange of musical traits between cultures. Evidence points towards the fact that it is indeed the case. Western music is based on the diatonic scale and is harmonic while Flathead music has a pentatonic scale and never uses harmony. Western music is vocal with accompaniment, and polyphonic. Flathead music is unaccompanied vocal with only percussion and is never polyphonic. The case of African music is different. Two strong points of contact for mutual exchange of traits are established: diatonic scale and harmony. Closely allied with the use of harmony in African music is the tradition of accompaniment of the voice with both percussion and stringed instruments which can produce chords. Melodic lines of Western and African music are more level than that of Flathead music, and polyphony is strong in both systems. In terms of the original hypothesis: Western and Flathead musical systems have little in common and exchange virtually no ideas; African and Western music have a great deal in common and are mutually influential and have borrowed much from each other. H. Takacs.
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