The African Imagination in Music

Awards:   Winner of Co-winner of the 2018 Kwabena Nketia Book Award, awarded by the African Music Section.
Author:   Kofi Agawu (Professor of Music, Professor of Music, Princeton University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN:  

9780190263218


Pages:   388
Publication Date:   17 March 2016
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

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The African Imagination in Music


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Awards

  • Winner of Co-winner of the 2018 Kwabena Nketia Book Award, awarded by the African Music Section.

Overview

The world of Sub-Saharan African music is immensely rich and diverse, containing a plethora of repertoires and traditions. In The African Imagination in Music, renowned music scholar Kofi Agawu offers an introduction to the major dimensions of this music and the values upon which it rests. Agawu leads his readers through an exploration of the traditions, structural elements, instruments, and performative techniques that characterize the music. In sections that focus upon rhythm, melody, form, and harmony, the essential parts of African music come into relief. While traditional music, the backbone of Africa's musical thinking, receives the most attention, Agawu also supplies insights into popular and art music in order to demonstrate the breadth of the African musical imagination. Close readings of a variety of songs, including an Ewe dirge, an Aka children's song, and Fela's 'Suffering and Smiling' supplement the broader discussion. The African Imagination in Music foregrounds a hitherto under-reported legacy of recordings and insists on the necessity of experiencing music as sound in order to appreciate and understand it fully. Accordingly, a Companion Website features important examples of the music discussed in detail in the book. Accessibly and engagingly written for a general audience, The African Imagination in Music is poised to renew interest in Black African music and to engender discussion of its creative underpinnings by Africanists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists and musicologists.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kofi Agawu (Professor of Music, Professor of Music, Princeton University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.562kg
ISBN:  

9780190263218


ISBN 10:   0190263210
Pages:   388
Publication Date:   17 March 2016
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Introduction 1. Music and/in society 2. Musical instruments 3. Language and/in music 4. The rhythmic imagination 5. The melodic imagination 6. The formal imagination 7. Harmony, or Simultaneous Doing 8. Appropriating African music References Discography & Videography

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Author Information

Kofi Agawu was born in Ghana, West Africa where he received his initial education before studying in the UK and the US. He has taught and lectured at numerous universities in Africa, Europe and the United States. Agawu is a wide-ranging scholar and author of numerous articles and books on musical semiotics, the analysis of music, and West African music, which include Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton University Press, 1991), African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective, Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions (Routledge, 2003) and Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (Oxford University Press, 2008). Dr. Agawu is currently a professor of music at Princeton University.

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