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African Tone-Systems—A Reassessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Gerhard Kubik
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Extract

There is an extensive literature on “African scales”, but only rarely is it reported what the internal order of the tone material is in the minds of the musicians themselves. Only in a few works can one find direct quotations from the musicians in their own vocabulary. One famous example is Klaus Wachsmann's documentation of the tuning process of an amadinda xylophone in Uganda, and the critical remarks made in Luganda by the two royal musicians, Mr. Evaristo Muyinda and Mr. Baziwe, while they were tuning their instruments. Simultaneously, the process of tuning was measured “live” with a Stroboconn pitch-measuring machine. Wachsmann writes (1957:14-15): “Strictly speaking there is no scale which one could describe in unambiguous terms of physical definition, but there are tuning processes in the course of which corrections are made. Their trend can be described, and in favourable circumstances one can form a realistic picture of the pattern in the mind of the tuner.”

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 17 , 1985 , pp. 31 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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