Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a four part pancocojams series that showcases brief excerpts about certain forms of Black church music in Southern Africa and showcases a few YouTube video examples of South Africa's amakhorasi music.
The text sources for this series are one doctoral thesis from Zambia, an excerpt from a South African social science book, and an excerpt from a South African article that was published online as a pdf file by semanticscholar.org.
Part I presents a brief excerpt of a 2015 doctoral thesis for the University of the Western Cape written by Kapenwa Kondolo. The thesis is entitled "The Ministry of Music: A Case Study On The United Church of Zambia And The New Jerusalem Church".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/information-about-south-africas.html for Part II of this series. Part II is divided into two sections. Section A presents a summary of a 2016 social science book by Austin C. Okigbo entitled Music, Culture, and the Politics of Health: Ethnography of a South African AIDS Choir Section A also presents a brief excerpt from that book which provides information about certain forms of Black South African church music.
Section B presents a brief excerpt from a 2005 doctoral thesis that includes information about certain forms of music in South African churches.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/information-about-south-africas-urcsa.html for Part III of this series. Part III provides information about Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) and showcases videos of URCSA services.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/videos-examples-of-south-africas-urcsa.html for Part IV of this series. Part IV showcases videos of URCSA services. Special focus in these videos is on some members of that denomination playing uMpampampas (hand drums) and other indigenous musical instruments as an integral part of their church services.
The content of this post is presented for ethnomusicology, cultural, and historical purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Kapenwa Kondolo for this research and writing and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
I present excerpts of online books, thesis, articles, discussion forums etc as a means of raising awareness about the subject matter that is found in those sources. I encourage visitors to this blog to read these sources in their entirety. That said, I confess that I've not read the entire content of these showcased sources.
These excerpts are given on this blog "as is" except for citations/notes. I've added ellipses in brackets [...] to indicate the content that I've not quoted.
Page numbers are given at the bottom of each page and refer to the content that is found on that page.
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FEATURED EXCERPT
From https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/483e/56cbbf94ef43544dccd9cba6eb3e5e6ed195.pdf
"THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC: A CASE STUDY ON THE UNITED CHURCH OF ZAMBIA AND THE NEW
JERUSALEM CHURCH
KAPEMWA KONDOLO
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities; Department of Religion and Theology at the University of the Western Cape
[...]
November 2015
...From the early 19th century, Europeans came to Africa with a sense of imperialist mission and an outlook of almost absolute superiority. As a result of such an outlook the mission societies naturally organized the Christian worship along lines which were familiar to them, and so the essential parts of the worship from the home church were transplanted.
Thus in respect of church music, the European outlook was dominant; Christian music, by necessity, had to be Western, as African music was considered to be unintelligible to the European ear and regarded as inferior and pagan. The use of such music then, could not be encouraged, but had to be firmly resisted, because of the risks of leading the newly converted African back to the heathen and sinful society.
When finally African music started to be introduced into the Christian worship, however, a most astonishing problem arose. Many African Christians did not seem to wish to have their own music in the church. The reason for such opposition can be understood only by appreciating the impact of the initial mission approach. In this respect, the practice of the mission churches in Africa has not been very different. The hymnody has consisted of transliterations of Western hymns and fitted to Western tunes, thus creating distortion of the tonal patterns and rhythms of the
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indigenous languages.
Gradually, the Western ways of singing met criticism. The major criticism was that Western tunes had two different and essential aspects. Firstly, the indigenous language hardly ever complied with the rhythmical metre of the Western melody.
Secondly, the tonal patterns of the indigenous languages never fit the European tunes. Axelsson (1973:101) observes that; In Africa today, a musical acculturation process is at work in which the African composer has ingeniously blended his own musical concept with elements from Euro-America and made them his own. In such a way an African music has emerged in a new dress, bringing to the fore the immense artistic value of African music in general which is fully worthy of our appreciation.
He continues to note that African musical idioms are by necessity closer to the hearts of the Africans than is music of Euro-American origin. During the time of Western colonialism, Euro-American music was constantly emphasized as being music of superior quality. This fact is apparent in the initial stages of the Christian missionary approach in Africa. However, following the different stages in mission history there has been a process of change from almost complete rejection of, or at least indifference to, indigenous African music to its acceptance and in some cases its over-estimation at the present time.
All added idioms in African music after the Western colonial period commenced have either been disregarded, or have been treated with a rather profound scepticism until very recent times. It is however, necessary to treat African music and its different styles or forms of expression during different times with more objectivity.
In recent years composers of African church music have increasingly used traditional elements in their music, and some of the most exciting experiments in neo-traditional music have been carried out in the church.
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[...]
4.3. Hymnody: - a conceptual framework
Chuba (1985:76) explains that hymns, composed over the years, started spreading all over the world as the Christian missions started going out. Hence those missions that were directed to Central Africa took with them some of these hymns from the West for use in their mission fields. When, therefore, we begin searching for origins of UCZ hymnody we have to trace back to these sources which the missions that went out to Zambia used; the British, American, German, French, Greek, Welsh and Latin sources but also traditional African songs. These are the streams of Christian music which have made the largest contribution to the translated hymnody, past and present, in UCZ churches.
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African Music is often accompanied by rhythmic hand-clapping and graceful body movements. The listening Westerner experiences a new sensation; a Westerner finds it difficult to decide what the connection is between melody and movement (Weman 1960:2). In selecting any instrument for hymn making, consideration is given to its
melodic and rhythmic capacities, Drums are among the more popular African instruments, but other important percussion instruments include clap-sticks, bells, rattles, slit gongs, struck gourds and clay pots, stamping tubes, and xylophones. African stringed instruments include the musical bow, lute, lyre, harp, and zither.
The flute, whistle, oboe, and trumpet are among the African wind instruments.
Chuba (2000:18) observes that the language of hymnody, in so far as the United Church of Zambia is concerned offers intelligible discussion only after it is viewed alongside the literary and translation work that was undertaken in the missionary enterprise. Indigenous tongues had to be learnt diligently by the missionaries. The use of the vernacular instead of Latin or English afforded the people an understanding of what was going on in the service.
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There are a number of foreign hymns which, if translated into a more contextual form of the local languages would, in one way or another, be useful in local worship. On the other hand, where the original meanings of hymns have been lost in the process of translating these hymns, after careful and thorough amendments they
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would also would take on a more contextual form and carry more meaningful messages to people. After all, most UCZ hymns were translated solely by missionaries who themselves were learners of the Zambian languages (1985:30).
Chuba (1985:46) testifies that in the United Church of Zambia, there are different types of hymns for different occasions. The thematic content is mainly related to life cycle issues such as birth, marriage and death. Also in community related cycles of planting, harvesting, hunting, fishing and other such activities. Hymns are sung for domestic and public use. Hymns invoke the name of God on whom people always depended. In this case the term hymn is referred to as what St Augustine defines as a “song in praise of God” (Dickson 1992:35). They are valuable not only for one‟s private worship but also in teaching others. They effectively communicate the church‟s theology, instruct one on how to worship, teach small portions of Scripture, and speak of ways to successfully minister to others. Most importantly, they proclaim the gospel and emphasize the importance of telling the good news of salvation. The Word of God could become the Living Word only when it is
preached, and only then could it awaken faith. Therefore, through hymnody the message of salvation would be disseminated. Schalk (1978:46) comments that a hymn is regarded as a resounding sermon; it is placed on the same level as the proclamation and prayers of the pastor. The same hymn may be sung in different ways in different contexts in terms of rhythm, accompaniment, clapping and bodily movements, pitch, tone and volume.
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Muwowo (2004) narrates that since the consummation of the United Church of Zambia in January, 1965; about sixty percent most of the hymns used at regular worship have Western tunes. The church simply received these hymns and translated the texts from European languages into African languages but the original tunes are
maintained in Western style. Muwowo (2004:10) continues to note that in the Western Presbytery of the United Church of Zambia the hymns are set to tonic- solfa with a four- part harmony, which is purely western.21 Other presbyteries followed suit, most of their hymnody is also Western in culture such as in the UCZ Bemba,
Lala-Bisa, Mambwe and Namwanga hymnbooks. In Southern Presbytery a majority of their hymn texts have Western melodies. However, Muwowo observes that there are only a few notable ones with traditional African melodies such as those in the Tonga22 hymnbook.
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In the course of the translations of hymns at least two things happened. The first is that the original (English) tunes were often Africanized, in line with the way a particular African language has been spoken. For instance, in some cases the Bemba translation has longer lines with more syllables and therefore with prolonged metre lines. Sometimes too, in the process the melodies of the original hymns were lost altogether. But while for some this has been at the cost of the loss of original meanings, for others this has been to better and full enjoyment of the indigenized hymns.
[...]
Since the metres of indigenous languages differ from those of English, some translated hymns were given additional syllables or verses or a different metre to each line. Sometimes a hymn was transposed into a completely different tune in order to make it singable. This is correctly observed also by the editor of the English version of hymns for Malawi, Nyimboza Mulungu.24 Also in the process of translation, meanings of some hymns were altered, watered down or distorted completely because words needed to match with the metre.
A.R. Godfrey (1945: viii) in the introductory note of his edited UMCA Hymnal at Chipili Mission, indicates that sometimes songs had to be adapted in order that they could fit into the English metre. Chuba (1985) sums it up by saying that the hymns which were translated into Zambian languages have circulated throughout the United Church of Zambia congregations, without denominational discrimination since the translation work began. In the celebrative Christian life of a Zambian this openness creates a friendly common platform for theological sharing, and united Christian worship. Indeed this sharing of hymns is a common experience in congregational worship in the United Church of Zambia. He further comments that the various congregations of the United Church of Zambia nowadays not only sing the same hymns Sunday after Sunday but their choirs also share the same songs week after
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week. In another way, for the United Church of Zambia, this has been a healthy and promising sign of steady growth to deepen Christian unity in the United Church of Zambia worship.
However, on the other hand, going around the UCZ, some congregations (especially English speaking local churches) sing these hymns to the accompaniment of the organ or piano or electronic keyboard. It is true that Zambian musical instruments have, for a long time, been part of life of a tenaciously singing community.
Unfortunately in the UCZ, indigenous instruments had often been given little or no recognition. This apathy has continued to this day. Foreign instruments like keyboards, pianos and string instruments have often been more welcome and given more respect than indigenous instruments.
Another observation is that these hymns have not become popular in terms of liveliness and activeness, they luck full participation by the entire worshippers apart from vocal music done while standing or seated. On the other hand, worshippers enjoy music and dance performed by the choirs especially those that use traditional
instruments. This is because most of these choirs have come up with African popular songs in which African drums and rattles are incorporated. Muwowo (2004:11) notes that, in view of this, worshippers are encouraged to sing and handclap with enthusiasm and dance proudly to the rhythm of their music.
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This concludes Part I of this four part pancocojams series that showcases excerpts about certain forms of Southern African church music.
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