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OF VENDA MUSIC AIMS AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS This paper sets out to be more than a description and classification of the of two Venda girls' initiation schools. An attempt is made to discover some of the rules of Venda rhythmic and tonal organisation, although the Venda themselves are unable to express these rules except by performances of the music. As a working hypothesis, it has been assumed that Venda music is systematic and logically organised, but not necessarily like any other musical system. Some sound patterns may superficially resemble those of other music and could therefore be compared with them; but if similar sounds are found to be the product of different processes, comparison is invalid and misleading. It is for this reason that I have argued elsewhere that interval counts, "weighted" scales, and other analytical tools of ethnomusicology are not as objective as they seem (Blacking 1967b:192-94, and 1970). They implicitly assign to sounds an absolute meaning and assume that the same musical patterns are the same in all contexts: as if see and sea were identical in English and even meant the same in other languages. Maximum objectivity can be achieved only if the tones of a melody are understood in the contexts of first that particular melody; secondly, the class of melodies to which it is said to belong by its composer and/or performers; and thirdly, the musical tradition to which it belongs. For instance, in some contexts what sounds like a rising fourth may really be a falling fifth, transformed because of limitations of vocal or instrumental range. Venda music will probably be misunderstood if it is compared with other styles of music before it is analysed as a symbolic expression of aspects of Venda culture. I am concerned, therefore, not so much with classification and comparison as with generalisations about the processes which the Venda use to produce musical sound. It is at this level of analysis, which linguists call the "deep structure," that one may expect to find the Venda using techniques that are employed in other cultures and perhaps even in all music-making. When in 1965 I showed how certain Venda children's songs are transformations of the music of the 'Venda national dance' (Blacking 1967b), I had not looked at the writings of Chomsky and other modern linguists. But even though I have now studied their fascinating and important work and can see its relevance to the study of musical structures, I shall not try to adapt their techniques to musical situations but continue in the direction taken in my Venda Children's Songs (Blacking 1967b). I do this because I am not yet convinced that language processes are necessarily more fundamental than any other human cultural activity. I hold the view that although varieties of natural, social, and cultural environment can stimulate the creation of an infinite variety of forms, the processes by which these forms are produced are limited by the capacities of the human organism. In other words, all possible processes are contained in the physiology of the body and the central nervous system, and human thought and action must always be an extension and adaptation of these processes, an unfolding of inner feelings, actions, and thoughts in an infinite variety of cultural environments which in themselves are products of these processes. Thus instead of seeing the processes of language as the basis of other cultural processes, we may say that they have developed concurrently with them, but in the field of human communication. Furthermore, research may show that not all languages and musical styles are derived from processes that can be called linguistic or musical: the processes which in one culture are applied to language or music may in another be applied to kinship or economic organisation. It is for this reason that I consider it premature to create theories of music on the assumption that language and music are automatically interrelated by virtue of being forms of communication (Seeger 1969). One could argue equally well that everything which human beings do together is communication, and that there are basically two forms of communication, interaction and transaction, which are extensions of the experiences of being and having. Although I do not attempt to use the techniques of linguistic analysis, I sometimes use its terminology. For example, what I described as "principles" in Venda Children's Songs I now call "rules." This does not imply that the terms have the same meaning as in linguistic analysis. On the other hand, it is not necessary to use a new word for musical transformations: they may not work in exactly the same way as linguistic transformations, but they are transformations. Although I call this kind of analysis a Cultural Analysis (Blacking 1967b:191-98), it is no less a formal analysis of music sound. Similarities of tonal and rhythmic patterns within the body of songs discussed are essential data in discovering rules that are applicable to Venda music; but their similarity is always considered in the context of Venda culture and not as sound per se. Thus the Venda may regard the same interval or pattern as different on different occasions, and conversely they may regard different intervals and patterns as the same. I am primarily interested in the logical process which underlies these apparent contradictions and in sets of rules by which the contradictions can be eliminated. It is important to know why and when people chose to produce particular patterns of sound, but it is equally important to know why and when they are the results of processes which have little or nothing to do with their sound. For these reasons I rely not on data such as the frequencies of rhythmic patterns used, and on interval counts, in which intervals are taken out of context, but on different uses of similar rhythms, and on the interaction of groups of tones, especially in relation to tone centres. Thus, after transcribing the songs, I worked first on those with similar rhythms (such as variations on the "standard pattern") and/or the largest number of tones (seven), and especially on those whose melodies are similar. From previous analyses of Venda music I knew that the Venda derive tone-rows from heptatonic and pentatonic, and possibly hexatonic scales, so I was prepared to find different types of tonal interaction, each peculiar to the different scale sets. I also took account of the cultural factors that might influence the composition or performance of the music, and in particular the relationship between sequences of dance movement and patterns of rhythm. My analysis is based on recordings made while girls were undergoing initiation and on my experiences of learning to sing and play the music during practice sessions. In addition, I asked for repeat performances of songs which I had missed when my tape recorder broke down during one initiation, and I collected further performances from two musically talented girls who had recently completed their cycle of initiation. The transcriptions are performing scores, derived from detailed transcriptions of recordings. In order to illustrate certain principles of performance I have written out one drum pattern in detail and have included examples of u bvumela, the technique by which singers add parts to the basic melody. I have also given examples of the way in which a melody can be transformed because of variations in words and their patterns of speech-tone. Since this paper is an analysis of certain principles of Venda music, I consider it unnecessary to give more than the basic patterns which are repeated in performance. During twenty-two months' intimate contact with Venda music, I learnt to distinguish what is musically significant: I have therefore omitted the notation of coughs, sneezes, shouts, wrong notes and faulty entries, which some musicologists seem to regard as the hallmark of good transcription. I prefer to transcribe the structure of music rather than the noise of tape recordings. The meaning of the notation used is generally self-evident, and in most respects it follows that used by J. H. Kwabena Nketia in his Folk Songs of Ghana (1963). Thus, for example, "although the pitch values do not correspond exactly to those of equal temperament, they are near enough to just intonation to make the use of the staff adequate for practical purposes" (Nketia 1963:3). So that their modes may be more easily compared, songs have been written in the "key" of C. Bar lines are used to mark both regular periods of time and melodic accents, and double bar lines indicate the sections of songs that are repeated. Most Venda music is made up of groupings of an underlying "pulse" whose basic unit has been written as a quaver in the transcriptions. The choice of crotchet, dotted crotchet, or minim for indications of tempo, throws the predominant grouping of the basic "pulse." The words of sections generally sung by the chorus are underlined: in ritual songs the differentiation between solo call and chorus response is usually followed; but in ndayo songs (Nos. 15-61), members of the chorus may divide into two and sing both call and response, and sometimes the call may be omitted altogether. Four conditions were fulfilled, which help to make the analysis authentic: 1. Many recordings were made in their proper social contexts, and in all recordings performers were either fully competent or supervised by acknowledged experts who could check their mistakes. Thus, even if performances were not always perfect they were at least considered adequate by the Venda. 2. Some songs were recorded, and many were heard, more than once, either in different parts of Vendaland or at different initiations in the same district. The similarity between performances suggests that most of the songs would be heard as transcribed wherever they are known in Vendaland, and that the important ritual songs are the same everywhere. This is not altogether surprising, because even though most initiation ritual is not public, the mobility of women ensures that no district can become musically isolated. For example, a girl may grow up hearing the music of one area, but must attend her own first initiation (vhusha) in another area where she was born; she may then participate in the music of initiation in a third area, where she goes to live after marriage. Musical interaction throughout Vendaland is further assured by the fact that girls' initiations are held in the homes of rulers, and women who are born or married into ruling families are generally compelled to marry outside their own districts in order to maintain the links between rulers in different parts of Vendaland. I have described this political situation in a paper on Venda musical expeditions (Blacking 1962). 3. Because my recordings consist of sequences of songs, spontaneously chosen by the performers or required by patterns of ritual, they provide information about Venda tonal organisation. For example, the pitch of the second song of a series was most often taken from the tone-row of the first, the third from the second, and so on. If consecutive tone-rows are the same, we then have evidence of different uses of the same scale. If they are different, they furnish evidence of the interrelationship both of different tone-rows and of their expected melodic functions, and perhaps also of different tone-centres. It may even be possible to discern cycles of tone-centres, so that an apparently random series of songs can be shown to have a logical order comparable to that of keys in a classical symphony. The context in which each song is sung in relation to other songs of its type may be as significant as the general context in which all are sung. 4. If interval counts and "weighted" scales are to be abandoned in favour of functional analyses of whole melodies in relation to given tone-rows and patterns of speech-tone, other criteria of quantitative reliability are required. Thus, I have selected for analysis a specific area of Venda music which the Venda themselves distinguish from other styles of Venda music. It is therefore to be expected that these songs will exhibit certain unique traits while at the same time showing an affinity with other styles which Venda class generally as "Venda music" (nyimbo dza Vhaven |
). To analyse them as a separate entity, as I have done, is to acknowledge the logic of Venda music: and since the purpose of the analysis is to discover this system, rather than to relate the songs to any other system, the basis of selection is claimed to be methodologically sound. Moreover, since the sample includes all the ritual songs and most of the other music performed at the initiations I attended (or known in other areas where I made enquiries), it is considered to be quantitatively adequate.