Music in East Africa ─ Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture

Music in East Africa is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present. Visit www.oup.com/us/globalmusic for a list of case studies in the Global Music Series. The website also includes instructional materials to accompany each study.
Music in East Africa introduces readers to the various ways in which historical music traditions and present-day musical performances either collide, fuse, or remain mutually exclusive in contemporary East Africa. Through descriptions of performances and case studies that detail the lives of individual musicians, Gregory Barz shows how people in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania create, dance to, and interact with traditional East African music. Focusing on specific contexts in which music is integrated into the everyday lives of individuals and communities, Music in East Africa considers the significance of music for people as they negotiate the world around them. It looks at the defining principle of musical performance in East Africa--how drumming (and the playing of other musical instruments), singing, dancing, and drama are deeply connected to traditional cultures. The book highlights the importance of individual musicians as specialized members of communities and describes the role of musical performances in such social systems as popular entertainment and religious rituals. It also shows how traditional East African music and performance has responded to modernization, colonization, commercialism, and nationalism.
Featuring vivid illustrations and eyewitness accounts of performances, Music in East Africa incorporates numerous activities that encourage readers to engage with the music. The book is packaged with a 70-minute CD containing examples of the music discussed in the text.