African Drumming – The History and Continuity of African Drumming Traditions has been inspired by the need to document and share African drumming traditions. Amegago draws from his life-long research in African drumming, music and dance, arts and cultures to compose a unique text that shares his experiences with other Africanist artists and scholars. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, Amegago illuminates the concepts, origin, nature and functions of African drumming, the roles of drummers in African and African Diaspora societies. He examines the drum making processes, drumming techniques and structures and the philosophical values and meanings embedded in African drumming performances.

African Drumming provides a basis for understanding the historical and cultural contexts of drumming and broadens cross cultural awareness of artistic forms. Its intention is to inspire further creativity, performance, education and research in World music, dance and artistic cultures. The book will be useful to musicians, drummers, dancers, musicologists, dance ethnologists, arts therapists, art historians, linguists, philosophers and other social scientists.

The book is divided into eight chapters: Chapter one reviews the definitions, concepts, and origins of African drums. Chapter two provides a discussion of drums found among the African peoples and samples of drums. Chapter three re-examines the uses and functions of drums in African and African Diaspora societies while chapter four reviews the role of drummers in African societies; drummers’ training, status and remuneration. Chapter five discusses the organization of drumming/music and dance groups in African and African Diaspora societies. Chapter six discusses the materials used in constructing the drums, the drum making, tuning and naming processes. Chapter seven discusses the techniques, structure and processes of African drumming/performance, and finally, chapter eight elucidates the textual basis of African drumming, followed by a summary and conclusion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Modesto Amegago is Assistant Professor of Dance Ethnology at York University with broad interests in African music and dance performance, cross cultural aesthetics, philosophy of arts, arts education, African and African diaspora festivals. He is the author of An African Music and Dance Curriculum Model: Performing Arts in Education.

CATEGORY

History Cultural Studies, Ethnology, Musicology/AFRICA