Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa

Abstract

Abstract This chapter argues that tonality, the single most influential system of pitch organization in European music, has functioned as a colonizing force in Africa. A system of manifestly foreign origins, tonality has gained increasing visibility in Africa since it was introduced in the nineteenth century by Christian missionaries. What forms of tonality were exported to Africa, and what sorts of traces have they left on the African soundscape? What was that soundscape like before tonality arrived? If tonality is akin to a language, how has it been “spoken” in Africa, and how has it shaped the musical consciousness of producers and consumers of African music? This chapter addresses these questions through commentary on carefully chosen music examples from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, and the Central African Republic. It emphasizes the modal ambience of pre-European music and underlines the potential of language as a basis for pitch organization. It concludes that while tonality, a symbolically freighted musical resource and an ideological package, has enabled forms of creativity throughout Africa, it has at the same time inhibited the pursuit of many potential avenues to creativity beholden to indigenous expression.

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