merriam reviews folclore musical de angola

7/27/2019 Merriam reviews Folclore musical de Angola

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Society for Ethnomusicology

Review: [untitled]Author(s): Alan P. MerriamReviewed work(s):

Folclore musical de Angola (Angola Folkmusic): coleco de fitas magnticas e discos(Collection of Magnetic Tapes and Discs) by Companhia de Diamantes de Angola

Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1965), pp. 176-177Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for EthnomusicologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/850331

Accessed: 29/03/2010 13:37

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BOOKREVIEWSOOKREVIEWSsome other motive, or mere neglect, can account for people putting out a bookand stressing the music in it, yet showing less pride or integrity in their taskthan do the honest folk they portray.The music is studded with errors. There is a mistake even in the notationof "Yankee Doodle" on p. 144. The tune on p. 207 for "The Bonny Bunch ofRoses" consistently misuses et for d#. The allegedly "simplified" tune for"The Sea" (p. 63) should probably have been given in 6/8 time. In all the songsthe repetition of time signatures at the start of each staff, and the use of the sec-tional instead of the final form of double bar, bespeak a musical training that wasmarginal, deficient and partly forgotten. Most disconcerting to legibility are theimproperly directed stems and the inconsistent beamings, to the degree thatsometimes (as p. 23) even slurred notes are assigned separate stems, thoughother needed slurs are omitted and instrumental beam-groups are scatteredamong old-fashioned vocal style notes. The musictype original was also poorlydone. Notes are not placed clearly on or between staff lines. Dots after notescome at strange heights and distances. Time values are often wrong; for ex-ample, the last note on p. 15 should be an eighth, and the first two slurred noteson p. 306 should have a beam to make them both eighths.

Huntington's impressive and thorough study makes good reading and formsa welcome contribution, even if his disarming and at times naive treatment leavessome loose ends. To this reviewer, he is welcome to stick his neck out (pp. 150-1) by insisting that "The Little Mohee" was originally a whaleman's song and thatits locale was "undoubtedly" the island Maui in the Hawaiian group, none other.But he ought to do the music right.Lexington, Massachusetts Norman Cazden

Companhia de Diamantes de Angola. Folclore musical de Angola (Angola folk-music): colecpao de fitas magneticas e discos (collection of magnetic tapesand discs). I. Povo Quioco (area do Lovua)--Lunda (Chokwe people (L6vuaarea)--Lunda district). Lisboa, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola,Servipos Culturais, 1961. Pp. 296, plates, music. (Available from theMuseu d6 Dundo, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), Rua dosFanqueiros, 12-2, Lisboa 2, Portugal.)This oversized (approximately 29 x 40 cm.), hard bound book, printed inparallel columns of Portuguese and English, serves primarily as a catalogue oftwo hundred items of Chokwe music made by the Dundo Museum in the Lovuaarea of Angola.The Dundo Museum, financed by the Cultural Services of Diamang, aPortuguese-Angolan diamond concern, has been carrying out a recording pro-gram in Angola since July, 1950. According to the introduction to this book,some 1500 items of music have been collected, of which 988 are on 78 rpm discs;the Chokwe songs discussed here are on tape, and copies have apparently beensent to twenty museums and archives in twelve countries. In the United States,these include the Library of Congress and the Peabody Museum of Archaeologyand Ethnology at Harvard University.The catalogue is divided into six chapters, of which the first is a general in-troduction and explanation of the background for the book. Chapter II, "Notes onthe Chokwe People and Its Folklore," is written by Jos6 Os6rio de Oliveira; it isa brief and rather old-fashioned ethnographic account which takes its major

some other motive, or mere neglect, can account for people putting out a bookand stressing the music in it, yet showing less pride or integrity in their taskthan do the honest folk they portray.The music is studded with errors. There is a mistake even in the notationof "Yankee Doodle" on p. 144. The tune on p. 207 for "The Bonny Bunch ofRoses" consistently misuses et for d#. The allegedly "simplified" tune for"The Sea" (p. 63) should probably have been given in 6/8 time. In all the songsthe repetition of time signatures at the start of each staff, and the use of the sec-tional instead of the final form of double bar, bespeak a musical training that wasmarginal, deficient and partly forgotten. Most disconcerting to legibility are theimproperly directed stems and the inconsistent beamings, to the degree thatsometimes (as p. 23) even slurred notes are assigned separate stems, thoughother needed slurs are omitted and instrumental beam-groups are scatteredamong old-fashioned vocal style notes. The musictype original was also poorlydone. Notes are not placed clearly on or between staff lines. Dots after notescome at strange heights and distances. Time values are often wrong; for ex-ample, the last note on p. 15 should be an eighth, and the first two slurred noteson p. 306 should have a beam to make them both eighths.

Huntington's impressive and thorough study makes good reading and formsa welcome contribution, even if his disarming and at times naive treatment leavessome loose ends. To this reviewer, he is welcome to stick his neck out (pp. 150-1) by insisting that "The Little Mohee" was originally a whaleman's song and thatits locale was "undoubtedly" the island Maui in the Hawaiian group, none other.But he ought to do the music right.Lexington, Massachusetts Norman Cazden

Companhia de Diamantes de Angola. Folclore musical de Angola (Angola folk-music): colecpao de fitas magneticas e discos (collection of magnetic tapesand discs). I. Povo Quioco (area do Lovua)--Lunda (Chokwe people (L6vuaarea)--Lunda district). Lisboa, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola,Servipos Culturais, 1961. Pp. 296, plates, music. (Available from theMuseu d6 Dundo, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), Rua dosFanqueiros, 12-2, Lisboa 2, Portugal.)This oversized (approximately 29 x 40 cm.), hard bound book, printed inparallel columns of Portuguese and English, serves primarily as a catalogue oftwo hundred items of Chokwe music made by the Dundo Museum in the Lovuaarea of Angola.The Dundo Museum, financed by the Cultural Services of Diamang, aPortuguese-Angolan diamond concern, has been carrying out a recording pro-gram in Angola since July, 1950. According to the introduction to this book,some 1500 items of music have been collected, of which 988 are on 78 rpm discs;the Chokwe songs discussed here are on tape, and copies have apparently beensent to twenty museums and archives in twelve countries. In the United States,these include the Library of Congress and the Peabody Museum of Archaeologyand Ethnology at Harvard University.The catalogue is divided into six chapters, of which the first is a general in-troduction and explanation of the background for the book. Chapter II, "Notes onthe Chokwe People and Its Folklore," is written by Jos6 Os6rio de Oliveira; it isa brief and rather old-fashioned ethnographic account which takes its major

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BOOK REVIEWSorientation from the kulturkreis scheme of Hermann Baumann, and which in-cludes a glossary and brief description of the major song-dance types among theChokwe.The author of Chapter III, "Musical Instruments Used," is not specified; thepages are devoted to good descriptions of music instruments, including four kindsof drums, the txissanje, and bells; precise measurements for a type specimen ofeach are given, although the tuning of the txissanje is omitted. Chapter IV,"Photographic Documents," consists of sixty photographs, four of them in color;there are pictures of the collecting process, landscapes, physical types, Chokweculture, dancers, musicians, maskers, and at least one photograph of every in-strument discussed in Chapter III.The fifth chapter, "Musical Analysis of L6vua Folklore," is written byHerminio do Nascimento, who is also the author of Doze Cancoes da Lunda, pre-viously reviewed in ETHNOMUSICOLOGY (Vol. VII, May, 1963). Unfortunately,Nascimento's orientation is derived from rather creaky concepts of social andcultural evolutionism; he speaks of the origin of music at some length, refers toChokwe music as representative of the medieval stage of Western music, andseems to be imbued with an antiquarian rather than strictly scholarly interest.Thus the music of the Chokwe is "curious," its melodies spring from an African"collective soul," "some of the tunes even [arouse] a special interest, worthy ofstudy and analysis . . . ," and Nascimento is surprised and somewhat taken abackto find that the drums are used primarily as accompaniment and are not always"the principal musical part." In short, the analysis is naive, and the few musicexamples apparently not highly trustworthy. We do learn, however, that Chokwemusic uses a variety of "scales," some of which include half tones, that there isno modulation, that tempi tend to remain fixed throughout the song, that there isparallel polyphony in thirds, that tonalities are generally "major," that quartertones and portamento appear, and some other facts.The last chapter, "Wording of Songs and Comments," occupies by far themajor portion of the book, pp. 67 to 296; it was written by Joaquim MonteiroGrillo who is credited in the introduction with "the literary revision of the textof songs and comments." Each of the two hundred songs is listed separately;included are collecting data, instruments and voices used, type of song, text inoriginal language and Portuguese translation, and comments on the song and thecontent of the text. Sixteen songs are given an additional English translation.Two excellent maps are included, one of the areas of eastern Angola whereDiamang has done acetate and tape recording and where they propose to continueworking; the other showing each locality in Lovua District where recordings havebeen made.

Angola is one of those music areas in Africa about which the least is knownto outsiders; it is to be hoped that Diamang, through the Dundo Museum, willcontinue its work, bring its ethnomusicological approach much more up to date,and disseminate the results even more widely.Indiana University Alan P. MerriamBloomington, Indiana

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