Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) [Paperback]

Eric Charry (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226101622 | ISBN-13: 978-0226101620 | Publication Date: October 1, 2000 | Edition: 1

With Mande Music, Eric Charry offers the most comprehensive source available on one of Africa's richest and most sophisticated music cultures. Using resources as disparate as early Arabic travel accounts, oral histories, and archival research as well as his own extensive studies in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and the Gambia, Charry traces this music culture from its origins in the thirteenth-century Mali empire to the recording studios of Paris and New York. He focuses on the four major spheres of Mande music—hunter's music, music of the jelis or griots, jembe and other drumming, and guitar-based modern music—exploring how each evolved, the types of instruments used, the major artists, and how each sphere relates to the others. With its maps, illustrations, and musical transcriptions as well as an exhaustive bibliography, discography, and videography, this book is essential reading for those seeking an in-depth look at one of the most exciting, innovative, and deep-rooted phenomena on the world music scene. A compact disc is available separately.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

With Mande Music, Eric Charry offers the most comprehensive source available on one of Africa's richest and most sophisticated music cultures. Using resources as disparate as early Arabic travel accounts, oral histories, and archival research as well as his own extensive studies in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and The Gambia, Charry traces this music culture from its origins pre-dating the thirteenth-century Mali empire to the recording studios of Paris and New York. He focuses on the four major spheres of Mande music-hunter's music, music of the jelis or griots, jembe and other drumming, and guitar-based modern music-exploring how each developed, the types of instruments used, the major artists, and how each sphere relates to the others. With its maps, illustrations, and musical transcriptions as well as an exhaustive bibliography, discography, and videography and a compact disc (available separately) this book is essential reading for those seeking an in-depth look at one of the most exciting, innovative, and deep-rooted phenomena on the world music scene.

About the Author

Eric Charry is an associate professor of music at Wesleyan University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226101622
• ISBN-13: 978-0226101620
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Charry is an associate professor in the Music Department at Wesleyan University, where he teaches courses on music in Africa, music in the Americas, rock and r&b, and improvisation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encyclopedic in scope and clearly written, July 11, 2002

By 

Phil Rogers (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) (Paperback)

A couple of years back I was perusing the contents of production sampling CD's, hunting for African percussion sounds to write music with on my sampling keyboard. I kept coming across names for drums like "tatango", "sabar", "sabaro", "kutiriba", "kutirindingo", and so on. I wondered that the different names meant, and how are/were these instruments used together to generate music, either traditional-sounding or else a fusion of various elements/styles? And what did the drums look like, and how was each one crafted? (Oftentimes these made-for-producers' CD's are remarkably devoid of useful documentation.) I found all the answers I needed in this book, clearly delineated.

For starters, the Mande people and their close relatives inhabit a relatively large area of westernmost Africa, including much of Mali, Guinea, and Senegambia, as well as parts of the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and to a lesser extent, other surrounding countries.

As regards this specific topic alluded to above - the farthest western branch of the Mande world mainly uses a three-drum ensemble of modified hourglass-shaped drums (waisted drums, shaped somewhat like a section of the symmetrical outline of a female torso as seen frontally or from behind). The ensemble is known collectively as "kutiro". The drums usually use peg-style tuning rather than the more familiar Malian weave tuning/suspension seen on djembe drums from further to the east.

Tatango and sabaro are synonyms for the kutiro ensemble. Sabaro is also the name of one of the three (different-sized) drums of the ensemble--kutiriba and kutirindingo are the others. By contrast, the "sabar" drums are further to the west, from the coastal Wolof tribe, a non-Mande people. There are 5-7 different-sized drums in the sabar/Wolof ensembles, most which look like the kutiros although one is barrel-shaped and still another is a small hourglass-shaped talking drum with an iguana skin drumhead.

'Mande Music' the book is filled with clearly delineated info such as this. It is comprehensive in scope, and very well organized. It's amazing that the author got access to such a wealth of information, then managed to write about it is so useful a manner.

He covers the historical and sociocultural dimensions of this music, then dives into categorical and individual discussions of the instruments, their tunings, distribution, and repertoire as well. Besides the numerous photographs and drawings, there is quite a number of useful maps [for instance, showing the distribution of the various types of harps and xylophones in West Africa, their names, tribes, and differing physical characteristics]. There are detailed charts showing tunings of the various instruments.

There are a number of transcriptions, which are sonically illustrated on the CD, which must be purchased separately. Be sure to check out the extensive appendices, as well as the 4-page glossary of African terms used in the text, and there is an index of people and another of subject/topic.

Especially amazing are the 28-page bibliography and 24-page discography/videography (all in fine print). The discography/videography is organized according to country.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Music and book, October 24, 2007

By 

Kenneth I. Rinehart "Frame Drum Ken" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) (Audio CD)

When you listen too this along with eading the book you have a better feel for what is being written. The combination is a 5 but the CD by itself is only 3. Some tracks are too short to really get a feel for the rythymn.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mande Music, May 30, 2001

By 

St. Pete Mom "St. Pete Mom" (St. Pete, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) (Paperback)

This is an excellent source of information, if you want to expand your mind with new musical notions and information this is the book for you. This study of the west African Maninka music conducted by the Chicago eth. is excellenty. I highly recommend it.