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146 AFRICAN MUSIC SOUTH OF THE SAHARA |
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(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); "Characteristics of African Music," J-IFMC, XI (1959), 13-19; and "The African Idiom in Music," Journal of American Folklore, LXXV (1962), 120-30. George Herzog, "Speech-Melody and Primitive Music," Musical Quarterly, XX (1934), 452-66 is an excellent discussion of tone languages and their relationship to music. Regional studies of African music are not numerous. As samples we mention J. H. Kwabena Nketia, African Music in Ghana (Evanston, III: Northwestern University Press, 1963), for West Africa; and Rose Brandel, The Music of Central Africa (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1962), for Central Africa. Sir Percival Kirby, The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) is a classic on the instruments and their musical styles in one area. A book profusely illustrated, dealing with instruments, is Bertil Soderberg, Les Instruments de Musique au Bas-Congo et dans les Regions Avoisinantes (Stockholm: Ethnographic Museum of Sweden, 1956).
Many excellent records of African music are available. A survey is presented on Africa South of the Sahara, edited by Harold Courlander, Folkways FE 4503 (2 disks). South and East Africa are represented on a constantly growing set of records, now already over 200 disks in number, published by the International Library of African Music, Johannesburg: The Sound of Africa. It is accompanied by detailed notes on a large set of catalog cards.
The Central African area is well presented on Voice of the Qongo, edited by Alan P. Merriam, Riverside RLP 4002; Music of Equatorial Africa, Folkways P 402; Folk Music of the Western Congo, Folkways P 427; and Songs of the Watutsi, Folkways P 428. A record showing the elaborate drum techniques of West Africa is Drums of the Yoruha of Nigeria, Folkways P 441. |
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