Society for Ethnomusicology

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Alan P. Merriam Reviewed work(s): Folclore musical de Angola (Angola Folkmusic): coleco de fitas magnticas e discos (Collection of Magnetic Tapes and Discs) by Companhia de Diamantes de Angola Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1965), pp. 176-177 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/850331 Accessed: 29/03/2010 13:37
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BOOK REVIEWS

some other motive, or mere neglect, can account for people putting out a book and stressing the music in it, yet showing less pride or integrity in their task than do the honest folk they portray. The music is studded with errors. There is a mistake even in the notation of "Yankee Doodle" on p. 144. The tune on p. 207 for "The Bonny Bunch of Roses" consistently misuses et for d#. The allegedly "simplified" tune for "The Sea" (p. 63) should probably have been given in 6/8 time. In all the songs the repetition of time signatures at the start of each staff, and the use of the sectional instead of the final form of double bar, bespeak a musical training that was marginal, deficient and partly forgotten. Most disconcerting to legibility are the improperly directed stems and the inconsistent beamings, to the degree that sometimes (as p. 23) even slurred notes are assigned separate stems, though other needed slurs are omitted and instrumental beam-groups are scattered among old-fashioned vocal style notes. The musictype original was also poorly done. Notes are not placed clearly on or between staff lines. Dots after notes Time values are often wrong; for excome at strange heights and distances. ample, the last note on p. 15 should be an eighth, and the first two slurred notes on p. 306 should have a beam to make them both eighths. Huntington's impressive and thorough study makes good reading and forms a welcome contribution, even if his disarming and at times naive treatment leaves some loose ends. To this reviewer, he is welcome to stick his neck out (pp. 1501) by insisting that "The Little Mohee" was originally a whaleman's song and that its locale was "undoubtedly" the island Maui in the Hawaiian group, none other. But he ought to do the music right. Lexington, Massachusetts Norman Cazden

Companhia de Diamantes de Angola. Folclore musical de Angola (Angola folkmusic): colecpao de fitas magneticas e discos (collection of magnetic tapes and discs). I. Povo Quioco (area do Lovua)--Lunda (Chokwe people (L6vua area)--Lunda district). Lisboa, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, Servipos Culturais, 1961. Pp. 296, plates, music. (Available from the Museu d6 Dundo, Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), Rua dos Fanqueiros, 12-2, Lisboa 2, Portugal.) This oversized (approximately 29 x 40 cm.), hard bound book, printed in parallel columns of Portuguese and English, serves primarily as a catalogue of two hundred items of Chokwe music made by the Dundo Museum in the Lovua area of Angola. The Dundo Museum, financed by the Cultural Services of Diamang, a diamond concern, has been carrying out a recording proPortuguese-Angolan gram in Angola since July, 1950. According to the introduction to this book, some 1500 items of music have been collected, of which 988 are on 78 rpm discs; the Chokwe songs discussed here are on tape, and copies have apparently been sent to twenty museums and archives in twelve countries. In the United States, these include the Library of Congress and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. The catalogue is divided into six chapters, of which the first is a general introduction and explanation of the background for the book. Chapter II, "Notes on the Chokwe People and Its Folklore," is written by Jos6 Os6rio de Oliveira; it is a brief and rather old-fashioned ethnographic account which takes its major

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orientation from the kulturkreis scheme of Hermann Baumann, and which includes a glossary and brief description of the major song-dance types among the Chokwe. The author of Chapter III, "Musical Instruments Used," is not specified; the pages are devoted to good descriptions of music instruments, including four kinds of drums, the txissanje, and bells; precise measurements for a type specimen of each are given, although the tuning of the txissanje is omitted. Chapter IV, "Photographic Documents," consists of sixty photographs, four of them in color; there are pictures of the collecting process, landscapes, physical types, Chokwe culture, dancers, musicians, maskers, and at least one photograph of every instrument discussed in Chapter III. The fifth chapter, "Musical Analysis of L6vua Folklore," is written by Herminio do Nascimento, who is also the author of Doze Cancoes da Lunda, previously reviewed in ETHNOMUSICOLOGY (Vol. VII, May, 1963). Unfortunately, Nascimento's orientation is derived from rather creaky concepts of social and cultural evolutionism; he speaks of the origin of music at some length, refers to Chokwe music as representative of the medieval stage of Western music, and seems to be imbued with an antiquarian rather than strictly scholarly interest. Thus the music of the Chokwe is "curious," its melodies spring from an African "collective soul," "some of the tunes even [arouse] a special interest, worthy of study and analysis . . . ," and Nascimento is surprised and somewhat taken aback to find that the drums are used primarily as accompaniment and are not always "the principal musical part." In short, the analysis is naive, and the few music We do learn, however, that Chokwe examples apparently not highly trustworthy. music uses a variety of "scales," some of which include half tones, that there is no modulation, that tempi tend to remain fixed throughout the song, that there is parallel polyphony in thirds, that tonalities are generally "major," that quarter tones and portamento appear, and some other facts. The last chapter, "Wording of Songs and Comments," occupies by far the major portion of the book, pp. 67 to 296; it was written by Joaquim Monteiro Grillo who is credited in the introduction with "the literary revision of the text of songs and comments." Each of the two hundred songs is listed separately; included are collecting data, instruments and voices used, type of song, text in original language and Portuguese translation, and comments on the song and the content of the text. Sixteen songs are given an additional English translation. Two excellent maps are included, one of the areas of eastern Angola where Diamang has done acetate and tape recording and where they propose to continue working; the other showing each locality in Lovua District where recordings have been made. Angola is one of those music areas in Africa about which the least is known to outsiders; it is to be hoped that Diamang, through the Dundo Museum, will continue its work, bring its ethnomusicological approach much more up to date, and disseminate the results even more widely. Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana Alan P. Merriam