This thesis is based on my engagement and observations of various music schools in Ghana, West Africa, and Tanzania, East Africa. I spent the last three summers learning traditional dance-drumming in Ghana, West Africa. I focus primarily on two schools that I have significant recent experience with: the Dagbe Arts Centre in Kopeyia and the Dagara Music and Arts Center in Medie. While at Dagbe, I studied the music and dance of the Anlo-Ewe ethnic group, a people who live primarily in the Volta region of South-eastern Ghana, but who also inhabit neighboring countries as far as Togo and Benin. I took classes and lessons with the staff as well as with the director of Dagbe, Emmanuel Agbeli, a teacher and performer of Ewe dance-drumming. His father, Godwin Agbeli, founded the Dagbe Arts Centre in order to teach others, including foreigners, the musical styles, dances, and diverse artistic cultures of the Ewe people. The Dagara Music and Arts Center was founded by Bernard Woma, a master drummer and gyil (xylophone) player. The DMC or Dagara Music Center is situated in the town of Medie just outside of Accra. Mr. Woma hosts primarily international students at his compound, focusing on various musical styles, including his own culture, the Dagara, in addition music and dance of the Dagbamba, Ewe, and Ga ethnic groups. The DMC recently celebrated its 10th
anniversary in the summer of 2010.
This thesis is also a comparison of the above music schools with those that I have observed in Tanzania, East Africa, primarily situated along the Swahili coast. I spent a month teaching music to primary and secondary school children in various private and government schools in Arusha, Bagamoyo, Tanga, and Zanzibar. This opportunity allowed me to witness the methods of musical education in public schools as well as in arts-centered specialty schools or after-school community groups. Two such schools that I focus on include programs that teach primarily Tanzanian musical styles to native Tanzanians: the Bagamoyo Young Artist Center (BYAC) and the Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA). I spent a few days at the Dhow Countries Musical Arts School in Zanzibar, an NGO founded and sponsored primarily by the Norwegian government. The Dhow Countries Music Academy, or DCMA, teaches traditional dance-drumming, called ngoma in the native language of Kiswahili, and also taarab, a popular song genre with Arab instruments and other musical influences. The Bagamoyo Young Artist Center is an afterschool program for children in Bagamoyo where they learn and perform traditional ngoma as well. I briefly discuss the traditional music of each of the schools’ curriculum and discuss the methods used in transmitting their respective musical cultures.
I compare and contrast the schools from various positions: their missions, audiences, as well as their histories and visions for the future. I also investigate the status of music in the national educational systems in Ghana and Tanzania. In addition, I explore issues of
commodification, cultural tourism, authenticity, and appropriation. Through research, interviews, and observations, I provide a picture, if only partial, of the state of teaching traditional African musics in Ghana and Tanzania.