On African Music: Techniques, Influences, Scholarship

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Kofi Agawu (Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Professor, The Graduate Center, City University of New York)

On African Music

Name: On African Music
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ISBN: 9780197664063

Techniques, Influences, Scholarship

Kofi Agawu (Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Professor, The Graduate Center, City University of New York)

$264

Hardback

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
11 October 2023

Western "classical" music; Non-Western music: traditional & "classical"; World music

Written by one of the best-known academic writers on African music, On African Music is a collection of seven essays addressing various techniques, influences, and scholarly approaches to African music. After a concise introduction spelling out the rationale for the book, successive chapters develop answers to questions such as: How does a ""minimalist impulse"" animate creativity in Africa, and does ""Western minimalism"" differ from ""African minimalism""? How do we explain the prevalence of iconic effects in African expressive forms? How has (European) tonality functioned as a ""colonizing force"" in African music? Why is the (written) art music of the continent talked about so little when it has been in existence since the middle of the nineteenth century? How might the discipline of music theory be rejuvenated by ""aid"" from Africa? What are the strengths and limitations of ethnotheory as a methodology? Who is who in theorizations of African rhythm, and how might we explain the shape of the existing archive? This book thus deals with analytical and interpretive issues, the politics of scholarship, and salient features of African music. Laced with provocative viewpoints on each page, On African Music should appeal not only to readers curious about the structural underpinnings of African music but also to those who wish to reflect critically and philosophically on how we study and write about the music of the continent, how we might approach its global status with a firm understanding from the inside, and what our priorities might be in promoting an empowering cosmopolitan discourse.

By: Kofi Agawu (Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor The Graduate Center City University of New York)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 156mm, Width: 235mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 463g
ISBN: 9780197664063
ISBN 10: 0197664067
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 11 October 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kofi Agawu is Distinguished Professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and previously taught at Princeton University, Yale University, Cornell University, and King's College London. His books include Playing with Signs (1991), African Rhythm (1996), Music as Discourse (2008) and The African Imagination in Music (2016). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1991), the Dent Medal (1992), and the Harrison Medal (2009). He was Music Theorist in Residence for the Dutch-Flemish Music Theory Society in 2008-09 and George Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford University in 2012-13. A Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is also Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and Honorary Member of the Royal Musical Association.

Reviews for On African Music: Techniques, Influences, Scholarship

There is something particularly gratifying about reading a mature scholar's work - having wrestled with related sets of problems for decades, their thoughts are distilled, their observations acute, their rhetoric fearless. Such was my experience reading Kofi Agawu's most recent work On African Music, a concise volume of seven essays collected from the 2013 George Eastman Lectures in Music at Oxford University, the 2015 Society for Music Theory keynote, and an impressive number of other lectures and papers from 2008 through 2022... The text is lucid and accessible, with most of the chapters presenting a numbered series of claims, probably deriving from their orally delivered origins. * Matildie Wium, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa *