Celebrating the Resilience of Yorùbá Culture in Music

L&P MUSIC ACTIVITIES TRINITY LABAN Resource Pack Author & Concert Presenter Aanu Sodipe & Isreal Akindipe (Ọlá) Celebrating the Mentor Kevin Le Gendre & Resilience of Yorùbá Richard Henry Culture in Music Watch the concerts Introduction This resource has been produced to further illustrate He was a key figure in promoting Yorùbá music, the above recorded concert that took place at St incorporating local Nigerian melodies and rhythms Alfege Church on Thursday 22nd and 29th October in his organ works. He once said: 2020. The concerts and resource were made possible by a generous grant from the Royal Borough of Whatever African music may or may not be, Greenwich Council as part of the 2020 Black History one thing about it is that it communicates. It is Month celebrations, and provided a springboard for for this reason that we find, on the social levels, a year long programme of activity from Trinity Laban that we do not have performers and listeners, & Blackheath Halls – Black Culture 365. but performers and participants; we do not fix time, date and place for making music, it The talks and resource were created and developed “happens” when the spirit moves us. We must by Master’s student violinist and composer Aanu also note that on the more serious levels, i.e. Sodipe and Bachelor’s clarinet student Isreal Akindipe the ritualistic and the religious, African music (Ọlá) with support from mentors Kevin Le Gendre still communicates... On the social level, it and Richard Henry, alongside Trinity Laban’s Learning communicates with the men and women in & Participation team. It introduces the audience to the society, on the ritualistic and religious the music and culture of the Yorùbá people which levels, it communicates with the gods and the features heavily in the concert programme. We would goddesses of the group’s pantheon, with the recommend watching the full video of the concert forces of nature 1 alongside this resource. Much of the programme is inspired by Sowande’s The Yorùbá people are a tribe from the south west deep appreciation of Yorùbá culture, his determination of Nigeria, but their rich and vibrant culture reaches to preserve it, and his passion to communicate this across the world and is enjoyed by many. Many with his listeners. cultures in Nigeria have suffered belittling effects from occurrences such as the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, the migration of English Christian missionaries to the country, the civil (Biafra) war, and 1 Godwin Simeon Sadoh, The organ works of Fela Sowande: a Nigerian tribalism to name a few. Despite this, its cultures have organist-composer (Louisiana, LSU Doctoral Dissertations, 2004) 43 <https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2883> refused to be dampened, intimidated, eradicated, or (Accessed October 2020) lessened, but instead are thriving and have benefited many cultures where its diaspora reaches. The music in the programme aims to celebrate this. Amongst the many influential figures that have come from Nigeria, Fela Sowande (1905–1987) is one who helped to preserve and communicate the Yorùbá culture through his music. He was born when Nigeria was still colonised and was a Yorùbá virtuosic organist and composer. In his late 20s he came to study in London and won various prizes such as the Read Prize for the highest aggregate marks in the fellowship examination, and even became a fellow of Trinity College of Music in the 1940s. @trinitylaban L&P MUSIC ACTIVITIES TRINITY LABAN In Christianity’s early days in Nigeria, efforts were made Song 1 to translate English hymn texts into Yorùbá, using the Ọbangiji same European hymn tunes. This created conflict, as the melodic contour of the European hymns did not at Ọbangiji (meaning the Almighty, in reference to God) is a all match the tonal inflections of the Yorùbá language, Yorùbá hymn which Sowande used in one of his organ or any other of the local dialects in Nigeria, and works, which I arranged along with other local Yorùbá therefore distorted the meaning of the text. In response melodies. He also used various traditional rhythms like to this, the musically literate members of the Nigerian the konkonkolo rhythm, a two bar rhythm which is used congregation began to match the vernacular hymn texts in music that’s in 6/8 time, as demonstrated in figure with local melodies that were commonly known in their 1. The word konkonkolo itself has no meaning, it is the communities. Many of them also composed melodies Yorùbá drummer’s translation of what the drum speaks that were derived from the tonal shape of the Yorùbá when it plays this rhythm, and is used in the second half text. One of the great minds behind this was Reverend of the song, Ọbangiji. Josiah Jesse Ransome-Kuti, grandfather to the pioneer of the Afrobeat genre Fẹla Kuti, who was also an alumni of Trinity Laban Conservatoire. It is likely that the two Yoruba hymns, Wẹrẹ and Ta La Ba Fi Ọ We were written by Rev J.J. Ransome-Kuti. Song 4 Abimọ ko gbọn Figure 1 This idea of writing music which matches the tonality of spoken Yorùbá texts is what inspired Abímọ kò gbọn, which I composed using the tonal inflections of a Yorùbá Songs 2 and 3 proverb. Below, figure 3 shows the text of the proverb, Wẹrẹ and Ta La Ba fi Ọ We the intonation of the syllables as it is spoken in Yorùbá, and the music composed to reflect the intonation. Now, moving on to one of the jewels of the Yorùbá culture – its language. The inherently tonal quality of the Yorùbá language distinguishes it significantly from English and other Western European languages. Each syllable of every word has a unique pitch in which it should be pronounced, therefore, altering the pitch of a word will change its meaning as shown below in figure 2. Three tones are used in the Yorùbá language, high (/) middle (–) and low (\) but the accent for the middle pitch is not normally written out on words12. Figure 2 below shows how one word spelt the same, but pronounced with different pitches can mean very different things. Figure 3 In the music, the pianist has the opening phrase (Abímọ kò gbọn) whilst the violin answers with the rest of the proverb (a ní kó má ṣáà kú, kí ní npa ọmọ bí àìgbọn). The meaning of the proverb is as follows – a child lacks wisdom, and while some may say that the most important thing is for that child not to die, what kills more surely than lack of wisdom? This proverb portrays Figure 2 the importance of parents, elders, teachers and other members of the community in adding their own knowledge to the child’s life as they grow older. Yorùbá 2 Tunji Vidal, ‘Oriki I Traditional Yoruba Music’, in African Arts, vol. 3 (Los Angeles: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center, 1969), 58 culture thrives through the strength of community, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3334460> (Accessed October 2020) @trinitylaban L&P MUSIC ACTIVITIES TRINITY LABAN especially in family life. I’ve heard it said many times Àjò which means “Journey”, was written by the by Nigerians that it takes a whole village to raise a composer to imitate the “talking drum culture” of the child. There are many other proverbs in the Yorùbá Yorùbá people of West Africa. The Yorùbá people, like language which encapsulate the different perspectives most African cultures have a huge culture of drums of community. and percussion. According to Yorùbá mythology, all fine drummers have the inspiration of Àyángalú, who is believed by the Yorùbás to be the first drummer Song 5 to have lived. He was a very fine drummer and he became a deity at his death. Whilst it is believed that Baba Mi Yorùbá families with the Àyán prefix to their names are In this piece, I quoted an African American Spiritual descendants of Àyángalú, current day drummers just called Walk In Jerusalem Just Like John, one of my add the prefix to their names or stage names as Àyán father’s favourite songs. Baba mi is a piece which I is a more prestigious way of referring to drummers. composed to appreciate the efforts and resilience of The most symbolistic drum of Àyángalú is the talking my father in preserving and passing down key elements drum called Gán-gan. The Yorùbá language is tonal and from the Yorùbá culture down to his children. Gán-gan is used to communicate popular sayings or poems. This is achieved by imitating the diacritic tones There are clear influences of the Yorùbá culture in of the language. The imitation is carried out by varying countries like Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, and many other the pitch of the drum through squeezing or releasing places, which is evidence that it has reached all around the tension on cords attached to the hourglass shaped the globe. The challenge is now to preserve and most of drum. This imitation also has to follow the rhythmic all appreciate its beauty in its raw undiluted state; not to pattern of the saying or poem and as a result the people substitute it for anything else but rather to understand it, recognise what the drummer is “saying”, and then and to spread the understanding of it to those around. they dance or chant along. When a talking drummer is playing, the Yorùbá people say “Àyán-ń-sọ̀rọ̀” which means “the drummer is talking”. Song 6 Àjò by Gabriel Adédèjì Gabriel Adédèjì is a Nigerian composer and pianist. He started his musical journey through Yorùbá folk tales that his late mother told and these tales usually had music.

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