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The Polyphony of Gyil-gu, Kudzo and Awutu Sakumo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Atta Annan Mensah*
Affiliation:
University of Ghana, Legon
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Extract

References in early writings to African music in pre-European times often indicate the existence of harmony. On entering Mossell Bay in December, 1497, Vasco da Gama's men heard four or five flutes played by negroes, “some producing high notes and others low ones, thus making a pretty harmony” (Davidson, 1964). At Malindi, in 1498, Vasco da Gama's Logbook referred to “two trumpets of ivory … of the size of a man,” whose music “made sweet harmony” with those of anafils. Writing on the music of Ashanti and other peoples of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Bowdich mentioned “several instances of thirds” (Bowdich, 1819).

Type
Multi-Part Techniques in Folk Music and Dance
Copyright
Copyright © International Council for Traditional Music 1967

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References

Bowdich, T. E. (1819). Mission from Cape Coast to Ashantee, London, pp. 361-69.Google Scholar
Davidson, Basil (1964). Longmans, pp. 122 and 127.Google Scholar