Message from the Director,

ICAMD J.H. Kwabena Nketia University of Ghana, Legon

Thirty years ago when the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University was celebrating its twentieth anniversary, Klaus Wachsmann seized the opportunity to invite Alan Merriam, Nicholas England, Norma McCleod, and myself for an informal meeting on the promotion of African musical studies, for the theme of the anniversary celebration was Expanding Horizons in African Studies: The Next Twenty Years (Gwendolen M. Carter and Ann Paden (eds.), Northwestern University Press, 1969).

In his own Plenary Address on Ethnomusicology in African Studies: the Next Twenty Years (in Carter and Paden 1969: 131-142), Wachsmann had made two important observations that provided the background for the discussion of the committee. The first concerned the scope of African musical studies or African musicology as he chose to call it, while the second concerned some of the directions that future research might follow in response to the pressures and challenges of our time.

It was his view that increased African participation in research might add another dimension to the duality in terms of which ethnomusicology had been defined by Merriam in his Anthropology of Music. African musical studies of the future would be based on "a triangular relationship: music as sound, music as human behavior, and the living repertoire of music" which "has attracted more attention in recent years because of the interest that Africans are showing in their music." He includes creative practice in the latter because for African students, it is "a prerequisite of African musicology in the same way as the Western repertoire is the foundation on which Western musicology stands." He argues that even though "strictly speaking, sound in this sense belongs to the schools for creative arts, and, therefore, ethnomusicologists may feel excluded, . . . creative practice, a third angle if you wish, is an essential part of the African reality." It is the area which lies "most of all, within the special competence of our African colleagues." If ethnomusicology could not accommodate this, "from the point of view of African studies, there is no problem.”

The purpose of convening the informal meeting of scholars in African area studies, therefore, was to consider how African musicology could be developed within the framework of African studies, considering the fact that certain disciplinary areas in African studies such as African History, African Linguistics, and African Archaeology had gained recognition in academia as distinct areas of research in their respective fields not only because of the new data they provide but also because of their contribution to theory and methodology based on
analysis and reflection on African data. Wachsmann believed that the time had come for African musicology to move in a similar direction. He felt that the Select Bibliography of African Music compiled by Gaskin (1965) under his direction and published by the International African Institute fully justified the recognition of African musicology as a distinct area of scholarly endeavor even though the number of scholars who devoted full time to music research seemed small as compared with the vast number of people who made occasional contributions to it.

His main worry, however, was that African participation in research was still relatively small and that his vision of the next twenty years which anticipated African input in his triangular formulation may be illusory. Accordingly he urged the meeting to compile a list of African scholars and musicians so that they could be invited to participate in projects and events. African musicology was to be a forum for scholars and musicians to share their knowledge and insights.

Nothing concrete came out of this meeting. Merriam was too preoccupied with shepherding ethnomusicology and did not feel that the analogy of African History, African Linguistics, etc. was relevant since ethnomusicology was already benefiting from the active role

taken by Africanists in the intellectual development of the field. Since Wachsmann's vision was also based on substantial African participation in research, he thought the proposal was premature as there was no substantial body of African scholars he could identify.

Needless to say I was naturally very sympathetic to the ideas of Wachsmann whose perspective as an Africanist had been shaped not only by twenty years of experience in Uganda but also by his constant interaction in the United Kingdom with Africanist colleagues in cognate disciplines. It seemed to me, therefore, that both viewpoints could be reconciled at the appropriate time, for there was no reason why African musicology could not be innovative.

Though it was a useful meeting, it did not engender any collective action that could bring Africanists together. No follow-up meetings were arranged perhaps because Wachsmann did not have a structure in mind, while the list of African scholars never got compiled. It was nevertheless a useful meeting as it inspired me to take particular interest in the growth of African musicology, to look at its history in the colonial period and to watch its progress in the post-independence period as Wachsmann's vision of African music as a field of international scholarship became a reality. It is this vision that we have translated, with the assistance of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA), into an International Centre for African Music and Dance (ICAMD), a Centre based at the University of Ghana but which is in the process of creating a network of institutions, scholars and artists concerned with the study and promotion of African music and Dance through associate and ordinary membership as well as through the establishment of regional and national Secretariats.

Although we have come a long way form the discussion which took place thirty years ago, I would like to take the occasion of the inauguration of the US Secretariat of ICAMD located in the International Institute at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to pay tribute, in our African fashion, to the ancestors of African musicology, and to all colleagues who have made the realization of that vision possible.

J.H. Kwabena Nketia
Emeritus Professor
ICAMD Director