Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T07:49:33.346Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

African Music in Johannesburg: African and Non-African Features

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

David Rycroft*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Get access

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Conference. Liège, Belgium
Copyright
Copyright © International Council for Traditional Music 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

Example 1 has been transcribed from a field recording of songs of the Butelezi clan, Zululand, made in 1955 by Mr. Hugh Tracey. Speech-tones of the spoken text are those used by a Zulu speaker, Mr. S. S. Ngubane. An English translation of the text is as follows:

Leader and women: They set him up one day,

Then they deposed him.

Men: He has grown old!

Father has grown old!

Example 2 is taken from a popular commercial recording (BB records No. 624) entitled “Mphefomlo warn,” sung by the King Cole Boogies, with piano accompaniment. A translation of the extract cited is as follows:

My heart has become tired,

My friends are all gone;

Example 3 is one of several songs in traditional Xhosa style sung to me by Mrs. L. N. Whyman, a Xhosa speaker. She described it as a song she heard sung by an unmarried woman after a wedding. It has the flavour of “sour grapes.”

How fortunate I am not to be married!

I can still follow my own inclinations!