Ewe music
Ewe music is the
music of the
Ewe people. Its highest form is in dance music including a
drum orchestra, but there are also work, play, and other
songs. It is featured in A. M. Jones'
Studies in African Music. He describes two "rules" (p.24 and p.17):
- The Unit of Time Rule or the Rule of Twos and Threes: "African [Ewe] phrases are built up of the numbers 2 or 3, or their multiples: or of a combination of 2 and 3 or of the multiples of this combination. Thus a phrase of 10 will bew (2+3)+(2+3) or (2+2+2)+4.
- The Rule of Repeats: "The repeats within an African [Ewe] song are an integral part of it." If a song is formally "A+A+B+B+B" one cannot leave out, say, one of the B sections.
He also lists the following "Features of African [Ewe] Music" (p.49):
- Songs appear to be in free rhythm but most of them have a fixed time-background.
- The rule fo 2 and 3 in the metrical build of songs.
- Nearly all rhythms which are used in combination are made from simple aggregates of a basic time-unit. A quaver is always a quaver.
- The claps or other time-background impart no accent what-ever to the song.
- African [Ewe] melodies are additive: their time-background is divisive.
- The principle of cross-rhythms.
- The restss within and at the end of a song before repeats are an integral part of it.
- Repeats are an integral part of the song: they result in many variations of the call and response form (see summary).
- The call and response type of song is usual in Africa [sic].
- African [Ewe] melodies are diatonic: the major exception being the sequence dominant-sharpened subdominant-dominant.
- Short triplets are occasionally used.
- The teleological trend: many African [Ewe] songs lean towards the ends of the lines: it is at the ends where they are likely to coincide with their time-background.
- Absence of the fermata.
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