Afrikaanse lessen voor de westerse
kijk-mens.
(In de Marge, Jrg.8 1999 Nr.3, p.21-26)
A
UNIVERSITY WITHOUT MUSIC IS A DEAD PLACE
African
lessons for the western eye-people
My
interest in new religious movements was spurred on in 1998 when I came in
contact with a small group of followers from the so-called Ifa religion, a religious movement of African descent. In two
articles for this magazine I have among other things discussed the origin of this
religion in Cuba and Africa. The study of this religious movement also deepened
my curiosity about traditional African music. That music and the role it plays
in African life confronts us with the shortcomings in our own perception of
reality and is for this reason alone worth studying.
CLARIFICATION
OF TERMS
When
I speak of African music, some clarification is in order. What we in the West
consider to be African music is usually the music that by Western (especially
American) influences strongly leans against those traditions that are familiar
to us, such as the Africa-blues or the traditional African music that reaches
us via Cuba: the Salsa and Son, very popular in The Netherlands these days. The
American guitarist Ry Cooder played an important role in popularising the
various traditional music styles. Buena
Vista Social Club, a co-operation between a couple of elderly Cuban
musicians, conquered the top of the charts. Also Talking Timbuktu, the result of the co-operation with Ali Farka
Touré, the John Lee Hooker of Mali is
an enormous success. The popularity of African music was also greatly
stimulated by Paul Simon who with his Graceland,
on which famous names like Hugh Masekela,
Miriam Makebo en Ladysmith Black
Mambazo feature, brought about a renewed interest in South-African music.
Also Youssou NDour must not go by unrecorded here; the greatest pop star of
Senegal who by his presence at most great music festivals in Europe,
contributed to the popularity of African music.
But as has been said, these examples
all point to a particular variety of traditional African music that we only
come across in a small group of relatively untouched cultures. The last
couple of years I have studied several African peoples in which traditional music is still part of
the culture: the Tuareg, a nomadic
people that live in great parts of the Sahara, the Yoruba, that we particularly come across in Niger and Benin, and
the Shona of Zimbabwe. A recent visit
to the Bushmen and Himba of Namibia and Botswana convinced
me once again of the lessons we may learn from the musical cultures of these
peoples.
DIFFICULT
MUSIC
Francis
Bebey some call him the guru of African music describes in his book African Music: A Peoples Art the
phenomenon that non-Africans find traditional African music at first hearing
strange, difficult and unattractive. The conclusion then is that the music is
uninteresting. Beby emphasises that the study of African music requires time
and patience. True understanding of African cultures and music demands many
hours of attention, of careful watching and listening, of doing away with
prejudices and abandoning all too hasty judgement.
The biggest problem may lie in the
fact that the purpose of African music is so radically different of what we
generally expect of music. African musicians set out to express life and all
its aspects in sound. Their primary goal is not to combine sounds in such a way
that they sound pleasant, its rather the other way around: natural sounds
are incorporated, absorbed into the music.
Tom Klöwer, author of a fascinating
book called Die Welten der Trommeln und
Klanginstrumente names another even more problematic factor when it comes to perception, the reception
of African music. Western people are in the first place eye-people. Sight has
become the most important instrument to observe reality. I quote from his book:
The special characteristics of hearing have clearly been neglected so that we
to a great extent try to understand and analyse the world with our eyes and not
with our ears. The perceived world becomes an image of reality in our mind, a
constructed misrepresentation, because what we see is not what is truly there.
Its merely the outside of the things we perceive. And a bit further on:
Western man can gain new experiences by hearing and can newly assess and
experience his perception of the world.
Via hearing man can get in touch with
the essence of his being. In other words, listening is a much more direct way
of contact with reality than seeing.
Klöwers book incites different
associations in me of which I will mention two within the space of this
article. First of all the things I experienced while travelling through the
United States. I found the complete lack of silence one of the most striking
things. In all the cities, in all situations you encounter other people there
is a buzzing, a constant noise. One would get the impression that people are
afraid of silence. At the same time the constant noise intensifies the
superficiality. The French philosopher Roland Barthes observes that there
exists a kind of acoustic pollution, whereby everybody notices that it forms an
attack on the intelligence of the
individual: the pollution disrupts true listening. Within the traditional
African music silence is as it were allotted an organic place. This should not
surprise us knowing that the sounds of nature are incorporated into the music.
Also silence is part of nature.
The second association is with
Robert Musils famous book Der man ohne
Eigenschaften. In this book Musil describes the based on historical
facts story of Schlauer Max, a horse who is thought to possess
(arithmetical) intelligence. The horse is capable of calculating simple sums by
tapping his hoof until the right solution is reached. Only after extensive
scientific research it has become clear that a horse can feel the emotions of
his owner so that he can stop counting at the right moment. Other ways of
perceiving reality go much deeper than just the visual one that only selects and
generates a concept of the event perceived. In the animal world ample examples
of communication and perception can be found in which other senses than sight
are involved. A dog may see something, but will only believe it when he can
also recognise the perceived with his olfactory organs.
The deeper meaning of hearing or
listening to music and sounds is that through hearing man can come in contact
with the essence of his being. Music may give access to regions that normally
would be shut out and controlled by reason and intellect. In that sense music
is at the same time a means of broadening awareness and a change from the
fossilised forms of perception.
FUNTIONS
OF MUSIC IN AFRICAN CULTURES
Almost
all traditional African cultures use music in their healing rituals. Healing
should be broadly interpreted here. It does not only concern itself with the
physical healing of sick people, but also with the whole-making when for
whatever reason the communal or social harmony has been disrupted.
In the healing rituals or the Tuareg the ancestors play a large part. Tuareg believe that the ghosts of the
deceased stay active for a long time. The thing is to evade negative
influences by all kinds of ritual customs. Next to that there is a strong
belief in ghosts that can especially exert influence on the state of health of
people. Via ritual music and singing it should be taken care of that the
influence of the ghosts is used in a positive way. Also among the Shona it is important to placate the
ancestors. The music in the so-called Bira-rituals
may last for hours. Often they work towards a climax at which point one or more
mediums get possessed by the ancestor-ghosts. The music stops and the villagers
can present their problems and ask for a solution. To the villagers the bira is often the last resort. The herb
doctor has already tried all kinds of herbs, incantations and medicine. Nothing
helps and the illness only gets worse. When nothing helps the general
conclusion will be that the ancestors have been upset and that they let that
know by causing illness. The only solution is that the neglected
ancestor-ghosts come to possess their victims by the means of mbira (thumbpiano)-music and are
reconciled that way. During one of those Bira-marathons
the mbira-music fulfils other
functions: she stimulates and spurs on meditation, thought, reflection on the
past, although at the end it should lead to possession of the ghosts. Someone
once said that you can dig up all sorts of hidden issues. Rituals render
problems perceptible and once they are perceptible, you can deal with it and
tackle problems. This is why the therapeutic working and social function of
these rituals can be so great.
Also among the Yoruba music plays a vital part in the well-being of people. The Yoruba believe that God Olodumare is incarnated on earth into Ashé , which means as much as power. Ashé you could say is a godly stream
that pervades everything alive. Next to this the Yoruba know a great number
of spiritual beings, called orisha. They
are as it were the personification of the ashé. There is a great interdependence between man
and orisha. A problem that one
encounters in life is almost always the result of friction between the
individual and his/her orisha. That
is why it is important to maintain a good relationship with the orisha. And this is where the Yoruba music plays a crucial role. Song
and dance can summon the orisha to
help solve problems. Every orisha
requires a specific musical rhythm. During these ritual meetings the orisha descends to unite with its human
children. Only then the power of the orisha
can be used to make the problems turn out right.
Finally, among the Bushmen music functions at several
rituals to release all sorts of tensions within the group. Every time the order
within the community is under threat, healing rituals are organised to recover
harmony.
DANCING
WITH THE GODS
Dancing
with the gods is the title of a lecture I once gave about traditional African
music. The title offers a gateway to elucidate something of the complexity of
African music. The preposition with might be surprising to some. From our
Western perspective one would be inclined to cross out with and replace it by
for: dancing for the Gods. Music and dance as homage to the deity. But a swinging
God the Father, in the middle of the common churchgoers!! Its hard to imagine.
However, its not a slip of the pen.
The little word with as opposed to for indicates how different Western and
African cultures are in that respect. In the West we are inclined to think in
opposites and distinctions: body and mind, God and human being, religion and
other aspects of human existence, music and religion, religion and dance and so
on. Herein lies a fundamental difference with traditional African cultures. Who
has ever gone through the trouble of entering deeply into a different way of
thinking, a different living environment, will have noticed soon enough that
the way of thinking in divisions is completely alien to the African tradition.
Dancing with the gods is really
dancing WITH the gods. In this respect music and religion are one: after all:
religion and life are one, and music and life are one. Form early childhood to
old age life is imbued with music. From its first movement to its last man
dances. Dance is after all so much interwoven with everyday things and doings
that no difference is experienced.
In the beginning there was dance
reads the title of a chapter of Robert Fishers book on West-African religious
traditions. Dance, rhythm, drumming, song and mime: all ways of expressing a
way of thinking, feeling and communicating. And that is why they fulfil such an
important social function. Religious dance, Fisher says, has a social function
particularly because the goal of religious dance is the systematic control of
all good and evil forces: it is about the harmony of the spiritual and material
world.
A
UNIVERSITY WITHOUT MUSIC
The
title of this contribution is a variation on an old African saying: A village
without music is a dead place. The choice of this title is more than some
tomfoolery. In the above I have claimed that Western man founds himself solely
on the visual and on reason. And with that we have lost the access to the true
dimensions of man and the world around us. Precisely a focus on the visual
leads to superficiality in perception. The contempt with which we subsequently
also judge societies that are primitive in our view, testifies to our own
limitations and our own compartmentalisation in the perception of reality.
You may wonder what these
observations are to do with us. It is I think not hard to follow the same
line to our university. No one will be able to deny that theres much music in
the way academics approach their subject. Musicality is typically something that
has been forced out of academic spheres. Music as a means of communication has
been banned to Griffioen the universitys cultural centre a mile away from
the real campus. The academic buildings are stripped of anything other than to
do with facilitating education and research. Music is not granted a place in
the academic environment except maybe as embellishment or entertainment, at for
example the opening of the academic year and at the Christmas lunch.
However, a strong fixation on the
categorised, solely intellectual view on reality leads to a confinement of
ones perception. This is also the background of many years pleading of among
others the Bezinningscentrum for other ways of experiencing reality, like
poetry, dance, music and art. A plea to grant these other ways of perception
a prominent place within the academic culture. A culture without music is no
culture; a university without music is dead place. When those other ways of
perception are recognised as such and given a place, when the Free University
buildings will be equipped for the experience of these other ways then the
university in its totality will be able to profit from a wider and better view
on reality. On top of that the Free University can become a place far more
inviting workplace for its students and staff members than it is at the moment.
This is the way in which Africa can
teach us important lessons about ourselves and the ways in which we shape our
lives and work.
The English pages of the Bezinningscentrum: English site
Comments
are welcome: wtg.haan@mdw.vu.nl