10/25 - Africa, the sounds of the Ewe people

It's Monday, the first day of my (or our) adventures through this book I found at the library called "Worlds of Music." I started reading it to see if I really did want to get into ethnomusicology, and it turns out it's a pretty sweet book and a potentially awesome career.

We're starting with Africa, what most people think of when they think of ethnic or cultural.

The best part of this section is about the Ewe people and their music. The Ewe are from the coast of West Africa, in Ghana and Togo. These people were originally very spread out through West African kingdoms around the 1600's, but eventually they all moved and settled near the mouth of the Volta River. Family is a very important thing to the Ewe people; you're considered more powerful the farther back you can trace your ancestry, and their social life is spent most often with their extended families. They believe that their supreme being, Mawu, is separate from human affairs, but lesser gods not only are present on Earth but interact with people.

Ewe people believe that before a spirit enters a fetus, it knows how its life on Earth will be and how its body will die. The musicians believe that their source of their talent was the spirit of an ancestor that they inherited, and they believe it's their destiny to be a musician.

They have a style of song, dance, and drumming called Agbekor. It was originally used as a pump-up jam to motivate warriors before a battle, but since there aren't really any more tribal wars, it's more commonly used as a funeral dance, to celebrate the life of the deceased individual and the passing on of the spirit.

Agbekor is learned without formal training; if you wish to learn how to play the patterns, you have to trust your own eyes and ears to match what other people are playing. So, the great drummers are the people who can play extended passages after listening only once or twice.

Now, on to the music.

The backbone of the Agbekor is the bell, the gankogui. "Listen to the bell," they always say. It's the time keeper. It always stays constant.
The gankogui is similar to agogo bells, kinda like mini cowbells, one high and one low. They play a pattern commonly known to afro-cuban drummers:

X - X - X X - X - X - X|X - X - X X - X - X - X :||
1        2        3       4        1        2        3       4

Once you've got that down, make sure you can feel the pattern in four beats AND six beats. The key to Ewe music is polyrhythm, and having these two feels overlap and feel natural together.

The axatse is a dried gourd with a net of strings with seeds tied around it, a typical loud African shaker. It plays the gankogui part on the thigh, while filling in the spaces with a strike of the palm:

T - T P T T P T P T P T|T

The kaganu, a high pitched drum, similar to a conga, plays the off-beats when felt in 4. This instrument fills in the spaces and makes the ensemble balanced.

1        2        3         4       1         2        3        4
- X X - X X - X X - X X|- X X - X X - X X - X X :||

The kidi, kloboto, and totodzi are the three other drums in the ensemble (from high to low). They each add their own flavor to the ensemble.

Kidi: X is stroke, Z is press

1          2        3          4         1          2         3         4
Z X X X Z Z Z X X X Z Z|Z X X X Z Z Z X X X Z Z :||
alternate sticking

Kloboto:

1        2         3        4        1        2         3        4
Z - X Z xxX Z - X Z - X|Z - X Z xxX Z - X Z - X

Totodzi:

Z - X - X - Z - - Z - -|Z - X - X - Z - - Z - - :||

So, all together, it looks kinda like this...

1           2           3          4          1           2           3          4
X  -  X  -  X  X  -  X  -  X  -  X|X  -  X  -  X  X  -  X  -  X  -  X :|| gankogui
T   -  T  P T   T  P T  P  T  P T|T   -  T  P  T  T  P T   P T  P  T :|| axatse
-   X X  -  X  X  -  X X  -  X X|-   X X  -   X X  -  X  X  -  X X :|| kaganu
Z  X X X Z   Z  Z X X X Z  Z|Z  X X X  Z  Z Z  X  X X Z  Z :|| kidi
Z  -   X Z xx X  Z  -  X Z  -  X|Z   -  X Z  xx X Z  -   X Z  -  X :|| kloboto
Z  -   X -  X   -   Z  -   -  Z  -   -|Z   -  X  -  X   -  Z  -    -  Z   -  -  :|| totodzi

It's pretty cool. Most of the drums play on the bell pattern, except on beat 3, where the bell doesn't play but the drums do. Keeping the beat on 1 and 3 keeps the dance feel, even while all of the crazy syncopation is going on underneath.

They are all war songs, and yes, they have lyrics, but they're all about fighting and being champs.



Here you can hear the girl standing and singing (?) playing the atsimevu, more of a solo, leader drum. The man in the back is playing the gankogui. The man on the right is playing axatse, the person next to him kaganu, then I think kidi, and then the man next to the standing lady is playing a variation on the kloboto pattern.

This is the best example I've found of the beat described. The drumming society is called Agbekor, they call the beat Adjogbo. I don't really know who to trust. I'll ask our African adjunct professor, Gideon Alorwoyie, he's specifically mentioned in my book :)

This is what it probably looks like though:



It's pretty B.A.

I hope that wasn't too much of a brain melter. It didn't have any time shifting or quintuplets or anything, so it couldn't be too bad.

I hope you enjoy this ethnic, groovy week!

M