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New Idioms of Music-Drama among the Yoruba: An Introductory Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Akin Euba
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Extract

Traditional music in Yoruba society may to a considerable degree be regarded as music-drama. The dramatic element of this music is given its highest expression in situations of a ceremonial nature in which music, dance, speech, physical movement, costume, and art objects all combine to constitute the complete performance. Music in the context of traditional dance, even when the dance is not connected with ceremonial functions, illustrates another aspect of the dramatic use of music; for Yoruba dance, like much African dance, is akin to dance-drama.

Type
Research Article
Information
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council , Volume 2 , 1970 , pp. 92 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 By the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 

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References

2 The Yoruba, however, have a vague idea of what is meant by opera, for the new music-drama is popularly referred to as folk opera.Google Scholar

3 See Banham, M., “Nigerian Dramatists and the Traditional Theatre,” Insight, XX (1968), 30.Google Scholar

4 For further information on Ogunmola's career see Adelugba, D., “Virtuosity and Sophistication in Nigerian Theatrical Art: A Case Study of Kola Ogunmola,” Nigerian Opinion, V, nos. 1 and 2 (Ibadan, 1969).Google Scholar

5 See Parrinder, E. G., “Music in West African Churches,” Journal of the African Music Society, I, no. 3 (1956), 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Beier, U., “Yoruba Folk Operas,” Journal of the African Music Society, I, no. 1 (1954), 32.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 33.Google Scholar

8 Ibid.Google Scholar

9 Tutuola, Amos, Palmwine Drinkard (London, 1952).Google Scholar

10 All textual quotations from Qba Kòso and Palmwine Drinkard are taken from the transcriptions and translations of Armstrong, R. G. et al., Occasional Publications, nos. 10 and 12, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan (1968).Google Scholar

11 Nketia, J. H., African Music in Ghana (Evanston, 1963), p. 30.Google Scholar

12 Euba, A., “Multiple Pitch Lines in Yoruba Choral Music,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council, XIX (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Beier, op. cit., p. 33.Google Scholar

14 This refers to the leading drum of the dundun family. Today, dundun drums are used for Sàngó just as much as bata. Google Scholar

15 The notion of the “talking” flute is not new to Nigeria, for the flute is one of the principal “talking” instruments of the Ibo. The flute, probably once widely used in Yoruba music, is now very rarely found.Google Scholar