Variation Procedures in Northern Ewe Song

Authors

V. Kofi Agawu, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1990

Abstract

The major organizational principle of Northern Ewe song is one shared by numerous African, Oriental, and European musical traditions: a small number of models (variously described as "basic shapes," "archetypes," "background structures," "basic designs," "core patterns," "deep structures") is transformed in a wide variety of ways during performance. Variation takes place on different hierarchic levels both within and between songs and includes practically all of a song's dimensions (rhythm, interval, register, contour, harmony, and so on). This principle, although widely demonstrated in the literature on African song (see, among others, Jones 1976; Kauffman 1984; Schmidt 1984; and Erlmann 1985), is not restricted to vocal music. Studies of Ghanaian Kasena flute ensemble music (Koetting 1984), of Banda-Linda horn ensemble music (Arom 1984), of Southern Ewe Gahu (Locke 1987), and of Birifor xylophone ensemble music (Godsey 1984): all these reserve a central place for variation procedures. The aim of this essay is to isolate a handful of melodic and harmonic models of the little-studied Northern Ewe song repertoire and to show how they are composed in performance.

Comments

This article was originally published in Ethnomusicology, available at https://doi.org/10.2307/851684