CONSTRUCTING DAGARA GYIL PEDAGOGY: THE LEGACY OF BERNARD WOMA

Bernard Woma (1966–2018) was a virtuoso musician and global ambassador of Dagara music. From his extensive outreach, workshops, and touring, Bernard’s work teaching the Dagara gyil (xylophone) around the world is recognisable through his detailed compositions emphasising the use of Dagara musical forms. His founding of the Dagara Music Center in Medie, Ghana in 2000, provides instruction on Ghanaian music and dance to hundreds of non-Ghanaian students. Bernard’s pedagogical pieces for gyil introduce Dagara music systematically, building students’ technique and facility on the instruments in addition to ensuring student comprehension of Dagara musical practice. Based on sixteen years of apprenticeship with Bernard, this article investigates his pedagogy, detailing his methodical process through his use of cultural and educational scaffolding techniques theorised as “deliberate practice” by Ericsson and Pool (2016) and underscores the importance of recognising the individual African musician in academic and educational settings.

SOKKIE DANCING IN PRETORIA: POPULAR AFRIKAANS MUSIC, DANCE, AND IDENTITY

Afrikaans protest music influenced by rock has received a substantial degree of academic attention in recent years. While significant, the emphasis on Afrikaans protest music has left Afrikaans pop music largely unexamined. As this genre enjoys wide popularity amongst Afrikaners, this article considers this lacuna in academic inquiry. Afrikaans pop music is widely consumed in South Africa and is a major part of its music industry. In this article, I bring into focus how a strand of music, that might seem to avoid meaningful dialogue through superficial lyrics, forms part of an Afrikaner subculture and a strategy to preserve identity, norms, and values. In particular, I argue for a wider contextual understanding of music and the limitations of lyrical analysis to produce meaningful insight into music’s role in enabling participants to negotiate identity and place. Drawing on fieldwork conducted at Presley’s, a night club in Pretoria, I elucidate this process through the dialogue between Afrikaans music and sokkie dance.

APPALACHIAN BLACK FIDDLING: HISTORY AND CREATIVITY

Discussions on Appalachian music in the United States most often evoke images of instruments such as the fiddle and banjo, and a musical heritage identified primarily with Europe and European Americans, as originators or creators, when in reality, many Europeans were influenced or taught by African-American fiddlers. Not only is Appalachian fiddling a confluence of features that are both African- and European-derived, but black fiddlers have created a distinct performance style using musical aesthetics identified with African and African-American culture. In addition to a history of black fiddling and African Americans in Appalachia, this article includes a discussion of the musicking of select Appalachian black fiddlers.

LIVENESS, MULTIFOCALITY, EAVESDROPPING IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL FIELDWORK RESEARCH AT GHANAIAN FESTIVALS AND ROYAL FUNERALS

Ethnomusicological research that involves live, sprawling, multifocal and integrated ceremonies often present liveness-induced challenges that may undermine the authenticity of the research outcomes. )is article describes multifocal and integrated music making performances such as festivals and royal funerals in Ghana and how the vagaries of liveness are largely responsible for nuanced peculiarities which every live musical performance assumes. )e article argues in favour of a central role for eavesdropping among informed participating audience members in data gathering efforts as an important strategy for dealing with liveness-induced contingencies in multifocal and integrated performance events.