West African Music

Of music the world over, African music has been the least well-known and the most devalued, which is certainly disconcerting. In the past, it was thought that this music propagated only vague cries and had nothing at all to do with science and art. It is true that the keys to a better understanding of this music were elusive: music and life being intimately connected, it was difficult to separate the various elements. This was a world that did not separate daily life from artistic activity: this interweaving became such that it discouraged analysis, and in the past, it made any attempt at understanding fruitless. An overall anthropological approach must be implemented, in which the social life unveils the musical life, and in which the latter follows from the system of the former, which complicates the approach even more.
To make music in Africa, it suffices for someone to begin in order for a second person to come in unexpectedly by tapping on a makeshift instrument, which can be just a bottle. Then a third person joins in, without doubt a passer-by who happens to come along. This person will trace a few dance steps. Then another person arrives, then still another. Each person fulfills an exact function that is never formulated. Everything happens as if a lesson related to myth were being rehearsed at the subconscious level. For example, it is known that one person will initiate an isochronous rhythmic formula, the basis of the system. Another will vary it, and a third will embellish it. Nevertheless, although this scene suddenly bursts forth full of bonhomie and general mirth, the resonant sound gives the impression of extreme disorder or of performers stamping their feet in place. This has made some think that Black Africa surges more from primitive speech rather than from being aligned in the concert of nations as Africans claim. Furthermore, it is an oral tradition in which history fades into the background. It is also true that the notion of form is a very disconcerting thing in Africa. It never begins at the point where one could expect it. It can fly off somewhere in its development. This music unfolds according to the principle of continual by cyclic variation. One always comes back to the point of departure, which is never the same for each interpretation. Yet in many cases, a certain functionalism dictates African music, however improvised it may be. It obeys well-defined reasons rooted in the social system. It has a role to fulfill, and despite the upheavals of this century, this music still keeps its mark of originality that also confers upon it all of its mystery.