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African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology

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Arom's treatment of African music is fantastic. The reader will benefit from Arom's direct experiences with African music in many ways. Not only does he provide musical transcriptions, but also discusses the equipment and techniques used for recording. He also discusses the social aspects of the music, which are inseparable from it. There is a large section in which he shares the results of his musical analysis--specifically, the ways in which he categorizes African music based on their rhythmic activity. He creates his own analytical methdologies and creates very specific terminology to describe the rhythmic structures found in African music. As a graduate student in music theory I found this book very helpful in my research and analysis of composers who try to emulate the rhythmic structures and phenomena found in African music. It's a terrific resource.

I spent about a year-and-a-half working through 'African Polyphony and Polyrhythm' (by Simha Arom), practicing and recording the musical examples myself, then comparing these to genuine recordings of Central African music. I would say this is the most applicatory study I have undertaken since (western) common practice harmony and tonal counterpoint exercises. Though clearly aimed at ethnomusicologists, it is rare to find books offering new insights and avenues for composition. Simha Arom's sensitive and thorough approach extends the volume to 668 pages, yet the preliminary discussions are fascinating, providing an insightful cultural and historical overview. There might be some confusion as to why the original recordings were not included with the book, the reason being, that the original multitrack tapes required expert interpretation (involving interaction with the Aka people themselves) to form the necessary sets and models. This involved 'parsing' the recorded material, rather than simply reproducing it in score. However, there was a CD-ROM published in French as "Pygmées Aka, Peuple et Musique", which contained audio examples and even an interactive sequencer allowing the user to recombine recorded fragments to form various versions of selected Aka formulae. I managed to acquire a copy with great difficulty, as this is no longer on sale due to the (now) almost obsolete format. Although it is interesting to hear the isolated parts performed by the Aka themselves, it is important to remember that even the Aka do not hear their own parts in isolation but only as part of an interwoven polyphony.

ERRATA: I have found a few errors in the English translation of book VI. Those that might cause a few problems arise in the chapter `Strict Polyrhythmics'. (#1} At the top of page 248 (i.e. `the principle of inserting binary quantities into configurations bound by ternary quantities') there are, strictly speaking, three possible ways to correct the paradigmatic representation. Either the `24 minimal values' should read: `20 minimal values', or the corresponding values should read: |3.|2.2.2.2 |3.|2.2.2.2.2 to account for 24 minimal values. Alternatively, a fifth row could be inserted to include both 20 and 24 minimal values. However, since the former (20) does not apply to Central African rhythmics, I suggest it should be corrected to account for 24 minimal values. (#2} From page 272, the part of the gàsà drum for the Yasmàlé dance is (probably) inventoried in ex.82 not ex.80, so the inventory for the agoa dance is likely to be ex.80 (and certainly not ex.81 as stated, which shows `all the realisations in the first pulse of the initial figure' extracted from both the Yamàlé and agoa dances). The reason I make this assumption is that the gàsà drum variations for the agoa dance are inventoried again on page 641, this time corresponding to ex.80 not ex.82, which is less likely to be in error. (#3} On Page 297, ex.120, the clap at position 21 should be at position 22 to reflect the isochronous handclaps in the (middle) part. (Incidentally, the polyrhythmic substructure of this rite is said to have 'hemiola-like' interweaving, when in fact there is literally a hemiola relationship between the accents of mo.kongo and the durations of the iron stips part at the beginning of each 'hemistich'.) (#4} On page 305, ex.129, the ngué part of the mò.kóndi model is incorrect. The attacks should occur at positions 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 20, 21, and 22. (#5} In `The association of Polyphony and Polyrhythmics' chapter on page 636, the box representing the period of the `song and harp' in the diagram of fig.7 is too short, and should be extended to correspond to two periods of the `Double bell 2' and four periods of `Double bell 1', since it stands at a ratio of 2:1 and 4:1 with these parts respectively.

José A. Sotorrio