Disparate Trajectories in Pre-Tertiary Music Education in Ghana: Implication for Holistic Education

This paper investigates an obvious paradox in the pre-tertiary music/aesthetic education of Ghana, which defies the pedagogical principles of continuity and progression. This paradox involves the simultaneous disappearance and growth of music/aesthetic education at the foundational basic schools and high schools respectively. Growth at the high schools is evinced by rising number of schools, students and teachers offering and teaching the subject, as well as registering for and writing the West African Examinations Council’s West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examinations since 1990. The initial assumption, based on the logic of educational continuity and progression, is that private tuition and basic schools are responsible for the growing interest in music at the high schools since public schools have literally failed in that regard. This paper argues, based on fieldwork findings, that the assumption that lower levels of education must necessarily be responsible for future developments in a subject at higher levels of education is only partly true as far as balanced personality development is concerned. As far as examination-based measurement and attainment are concerned, there are other pedagogical, administrative and logistical factors that can mitigate any shortfall from the lower levels

Proverbs and stylistic devices of Akwasi Ampofo Agyei’s Akan highlife lyrics

This paper examines the stylistic features and proverbs in ɔba nyansafo wɔbu no bɛ na wɔnka no asɛm, ‘A wise child is spoken to in proverbs’ a popular Ghanaian highlife song by the late Akwasi Ampofo Agyei. This is an area which is still grey in the study of highlife music. The paper basically adopted qualitative methodology through interviews and recordings. The paper combines the theories of language ideology and ethnomusicology, and looks at the indispensable, didactic and communicative functions of stylistic devices and proverbs in Akan highlife. These tropes as forms of indirection help the musicians to comment on very delicate issues. They depict the musician’s communicative competence in the Akan language, cultural beliefs, worldview and social structures. The paper further reflects on the relative absence of proverbs in current Ghanaian highlife. The stylistic devices and proverbs in the song are subjected to ethnomusicological, stylistic and pragmatic analysis

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, 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

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, 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: 1) 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 2) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six pre-registered predictions, five were strongly supported: relative to speech, songs use 1) higher pitch, 2) slower temporal rate, and 3) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar 4) pitch interval size, and 5) 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