Speech Surrogates of Africa: A Study of the Fante Mmensuon

Various forms of communication based on sounds produced by instruments are common in many African societies. Among these, the slit gong and drums are the most popular and the most widely used as speech surrogates in Africa (Nketia, 1971: 700). With the introduction of participant-observation research orientation to African scholarship, new information is being discovered and structured to fill existing gaps in knowledge. The 'mmen esoun ' (also spelt 'mmensoun ') (meaning Seven Horns) is a speech surrogate used among the Pante of Ghana. Mmensoun has the dual capability of imitating the speaking voice and, simultaneously, serving as a musical instrument in a performance. As a speech surrogate, it functions as an effective and powerful instrument for communication. This paper introduces the communicative sounds of the mmensuon within the cultural system of the Fante, and offers a framework within which the instrument could be further investigated

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech

The Performing Arts and the Post-Colonial Ghanaian Experience: The Ghana National Symphony Orchestra in Perspective

The National Symphony Orchestra was established some 50 years ago asone of several institutions to spearhead an African cultural renaissance agenda in Ghana. Of the several institutions established the orchestra was criticised the most, ostensibly for its paradoxical status as a foreign ensemble. In this article we recount the history of the national orchestraand argue that, like other indigenized colonial institutions, the debate over its cultural relevance or otherwise should focus on the use(s) to which that ensemble is put in the Ghanaian context rather than on its history of origin and instrumentation.RésuméCréé il y une cinquantaines d’années, l’orchestre symphonique nationale du Ghana était destiné, à l’instar de plusieurs autres institutions, à servirde fer de lance pour la renaissance culturelle africaine au Ghana. L’orchestre était le plus critiqué parmi toutes les institutions créées apparemment en raison de son statut paradoxal d’ensemble étranger. Ils’agit, dans cet article, de parcourir l’histoire de l’orchestre national et de faire valoir notre argument selon lequel le débat par rapport à sa pertinence culturelle, comme celle des autres institutions coloniales « indigénisées » devrait centrer sur l’usage dont est fait l’ensemble dansle contexte ghanéen plutôt que sur l’histoire de son origine et de soninstrumentation