A’ LEVEL AFRICAN MUSIC HISTORY

AFRICAN MUSIC HISTORY

Under this unit, we shall look at three sub-topics as follows

1. Music in pre-colonial period

2. Music in colonial period
3. Music in post-colonial period (after independence)
MUSIC IN PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD

1. During pre-colonial period, every one made music. Discuss

2. What were the main features of the music development in Uganda during the pre-colonial era?
3. Mention at least two types of music that were composed and performed in Uganda in the pre-
colonial and colonial time.
4.

MUSIC IN COLONIAL PERIOD

1. Examine the influence of colonialists/ missionaries on the development of African music.

2. Examine the importance of the 2nd world war to the development of music in Uganda.
3. Assess the role played by Namirembe music festivals to the development of music during the
colonial time.
MUSIC IN POST-COLONIAL TIME/AFTER INDEPENDENCE
1. Examine the roles played by the following institutions towards the development of music
after independence in Uganda

a) TV and Radio stations

b) National theatre

2. Mention at least six contributions of school music festivals in the development of music in
Uganda.

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 ANSWERS
MUSIC IN PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD
1. During pre-colonial time, everyone made music. Discuss
 During this period, Uganda had no influence from the colonialists and music played an
important role in all aspects of life such as war, worship, farming among others had to
be accompanied with music. Therefore everyone indeed was responsible for music
making and these groups include the following:
 Farmers were responsible for music making; this was in a way that they created music
while digging, grinding to provide rhythm for their work hence, music making
 Mothers were also responsible for making music during this period; Mothers sung
lullabies to sooth their babies from crying and so did they sing to make their babies learn
to walk, and talk thus making music
 Children also made music during this period. They accompanied their plays with play-
songs most of which helped in building stronger relationships amongst them.
 Families ; this group came together during marriages to celebrate the union of man to a
woman and both sides would have music to bless the marriage of the two people
 Hunters also made music; after killing an animal and eating the meat, men blew the
horns of the animal to make sound which became music
 Herdsmen made music too; grazing activities were accompanied by music which activity
was common with the pastoralists like the karamojongs.
 Another group was the warriors; tribes fought each other and made music for
encouraging the warriors and for victory or loss respectively
 Worshipers made music too; this group composed music for appeasing their gods and
during their worship
 Kings and chiefs made music during precolonial period; this group had their own music
for entertainment, coronation, and also for burial.
 In conclusion, looking at the above groups of people, everyone at least had a role in
music making and we just have to bear with the fact that everyone made music during
the precolonial period.

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2. What were the main features of the music development in Uganda during
the pre-colonial era?
 Music development in this period can be got in three areas of the songs, instrumental
and the dance features in the era.
 During the precolonial period there were folk songs. Folk songs are the songs without
definite composers.
 There were songs accepted in different settings that is there were songs for adults and
children
 Children songs mainly included lullabies, play songs, story songs and mockery songs.
 Songs for adults were work songs, marriage songs, ritual songs
 These songs were performed in pentatonic scale
 These songs were accompanied with local African instruments such as hand clapping.
 Instruments were got from locally available materials for example; woods for making
xylophones, resonators of drums, lyres, etc.
 Instrumental music was characterized by improvisation and syncopation.
 Dance accompanied most musical performances to give chiefs and Kings Pleasure and
honor, initiation ceremonies, etc.
 Costumes were improvised for dancers. These included banana leaves tied on skirts.
 Some dances were for men while others were for women
 Dances for different cultures emphasized different parts of the body; that is Runyege
from Bunyoro and Akogo from Teso stressed on footwork.

3. Mention at least two types of music that were composed and performed in Uganda in
the pre-colonial and colonial time.
 Music for children that comprised of lullabies, play songs and action songs
 Music for Adults used at social gatherings for birth of twins, circumcision, funeral,
marriages among others
 Work songs to discourage laziness
 War songs sung before, during and after the war for victory or loss respectively
 Love songs to express the romantic moods towards a lover
 Entertainment songs were also sung to entertain oneself
 Odic songs were also used for historical purposes
 Worship songs were composed to be sung in sympathetic moods to implore the gods’
mercies

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 MUSIC IN COLONIAL PERIOD
1. Examine the influence of colonialists/ missionaries on the development of African music
 The European missionaries came to Uganda towards the end of the 19th century
after the arrival of the Arab Muslims while the Roman Catholic and Anglicans
came for evangelization. All these had a great influence towards the
development of African music as analyzed below
 In the church, African traditional songs and instruments were regarded as pagan
and profane and not allowed for Christian worship
 African drum was only used for calling Christian converts to church service as all
other forms of music was regarded with contempt and this was mainly with
Anglican missionaries.
 Organ and harmonium were therefore took the role of African traditional
instruments thus hindering the development of African music.
 Western music was introduced to replace African music in the church. For
example catholic Christians sang Gregorian chants in Latin and the Protestants
sang hymns and psalms though later were translated in local languages.
 Even these translated songs were sung in western tunes which never favored the
development of African music in anyway.
 New notes which were unusual to the performers introduced to replace the
African diatonic scale and these new notes of were incorrectly sung giving a
false picture of western music
 The few able performers were catered for and were taught music reading and to
perform in harmony
 In schools, other western songs were introduced an example of which is ‘row,
row, row your boat’
 There was no proper music syllabus and any teacher taught any song that he
was able to sing. How then would this help to develop African music?
 In the homes of unchristian and in the kings ’courts, traditional music continued
as before; it was in these places that traditional music survived extinction from
the colonialists.
 Performance became for money which was not the case before
 In conclusion, the coming of the Europeans did not support the development of
African music by any means and the aim was to completely extinguish African
music as they considered it profane, pagan and satanic even including the
African instruments.

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2. Examine the importance of the 2nd world war to the development of music in Uganda.
 World war II that took place in 1939 – 1945 had some influence towards the
development of African music as below
 It enabled some Ugandan soldiers to travel to distant lands that is North Africa,
middle East and far East and the surviving soldiers returned with new musical
ideas
 They introduce musical instruments such as Banjos and guitars
 Western Ball room dances were taught such as waltz, rumba, fox-trot among
others
 This was therefore the beginning of ball room dancing on a large scale by
Africans.
3. Assess the role played by Namirembe music festivals to the development of music
during the colonial time.
 Reverend G. M Duncan, a music director and organist in Namirembe cathedral set up
this church music festival for Anglican choirs in 1929
 (Take a clear stand by saying to a greater extent, or to a smaller extent and then
continue your argument. Give more points on the side where you said by a greater
extent and give less points on the side where you said to a smaller extent…look at
my stand below)
 To a smaller extent, Namirembe music festivals was responsible for the development
of music in Uganda during the colonial period because even it ignored the
development of music in the Catholic Church.
 During these festivals, choirs sang hymns and anthems. This boosted the standard of
music in Anglican schools
 In 1944, the festival was revived by Dr. K watchsman to extend the work of Ugandan
musicians who were ignorant of the good western music as well as African music.
 A wide range of styles was included such as pieces of western music, psalms,
canticles, negro spirituals and European folk songs
 However, to a greater extent, there were several other musical opportunities that
were mainly responsible for the advancement of music during the era and these
include the following factors
 Some Ugandans went abroad to study music and on their return, they became choir
masters and were also used as adjudicators at festivals
 The Europeans around Kampala formed choral music group. They performed
western choral works such as Handel’s messiah, Bach’s Christmas oratorio and some
Africans were allowed to join the group
 The police band in Kampala offered free entertainments for during Sunday
afternoons and many musicians attended.

 Uganda Broadcasting Service (UBS), nowadays Uganda Broadcasting Corporation

(UBC) recorded performances and broadcasted for public appreciation

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 The national theatre was opened by that time which encouraged more musical
performances by artistes

 Musical clubs and bands were formed and these performed in dance halls. Much of
their music was influenced by the Congolese jazz popular music

 The British council library was a rich custody of music books and western music was
recorded on discs

 The council also sponsored the Namirembe music festival by paying the expense and
fees of the festival adjudicators who came from Britain

 With the above arguments, it is indeed very clear for one to conclude that to a
smaller extent, the Namirembe music festival played roles towards the
development of music during colonial period in Uganda

MUSIC IN POST-COLONIAL TIME/AFTER INDEPENDENCE

1. Examine the roles played by the following institutions towards the
development of music after independence in Uganda
a) TV and Radio stations
 Both TV and Radio stations recorded music for broadcasting
 Some of the musicians have been invited to talk about their music on radio talk
show and TV shows
 Listeners were able to listen to music freely moreover high quality music such as
jazz music
 Musicians were therefore able to serve and advertise their music to a wide range
of audience in the country
b) National theatre
 Here, traditional music Dance and Drama are presented to the people through
modern techniques of stage management.
 It serves as a focus of national interest and thus introducing the people to the
musical cultures of the world
 Performing groups have come from Britain, France, Germany and Korea and this
has enabled the nations to see what other nations have to offer in the field of
music
 Other private theatres have also been opened due to the increase in the number
of performing groups increasing the chances of musical productions.

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2. Mention at least six contributions of school music festivals in the development
of music in Uganda.
 This festival was set up soon after the independence to unite the various musical
institutions since the then Namirembe music festival was denominational and
this had a lot of contributions as below
 Many schools in the country were involved in the festival making choirs exhibit a
variety of Uganda’s cultural wealth of heritage since all districts were
represented at the national level.
 The festival syllabus follows the school teaching syllabus closely thus the schools
that provided effective classroom work had a better position at the festivals
 The singing classes consisted of Ugandan and western pieces to be performed
individually or in a group
 The instrumental classes encouraged schools to acquire a variety of instruments
 These classes of instruments caused some instruments to cross their ethnic
boundaries for example Adungu was played in Buganda and in western Uganda.
 The instrumental classes created orchestral playing something that had not
happened previously.
 Creative dance and original composition one in western and another one in
traditional style have been added
 Traditional folk dancing that was non-existing in Namirembe music festival was
vigorously taken up and schools spent money on this to produce an existing
performance
 There was an improvement of the standard of choir leaders by giving them
courses in to explain the syllabus of the festival as set pieces were also taught
 Other aspects of music such as voice training, conducting and adjudication were
taught
 When these choir leaders returned to their various districts, they also organized
similar courses for other teachers
 Some musical groups outside the ministry of education were catered for by the
ministry of culture and community development. These groups included the
Uganda heart-beat of Africa, the Nnyonza group