Ancient text messages of the Yorùbá bàtá drum: cracking the code

192 Pages·2016·11.915 MB·English

by  Amanda Villepastour

ANCIENT TEXT MESSAGES OF THE
YORÙBÁ BÀTÁ DRUM
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Ancient Text Messages of the
Yorùbá Bàtá Drum
Cracking the Code
AMANDA VILLEPASTOUR
MIM, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Amanda Villepastour 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Amanda Villepastour has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Villepastour, Amanda.
Ancient text messages of the Yorùbá bàtá drum : cracking the code. – (SOAS
musicology series)
1.Yorùbá (African people) – Music – History and criticism. 2. Bàtá. 3. Drum
language. 4. Yorùbá language. 5. Music and language.
I. Title II. Series III. University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies.
786.9’216296333–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Villepastour, Amanda, 1958–
Ancient text messages of the Yorùbá bàtá drum : cracking the code / Amanda
Villepastour.
p.cm. – (SOAS musicology series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–7546–6753–7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1.Bàtá music – Nigeria – History and criticism. 2. Drum language – Nigeria.
3.Yorùbá (African people) – Music – History and criticism.
I. Title.
ML1038.B38V56 2009
786.9’20896333–dc22 2009016963
The AfroRomanU fonts used in this work are available from www.linguistsoftware.com
ISBN 9780754667537
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables ix
List of Music Examples xi
List of CD Examples xv
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction 1
The Research 1
Numbering System 2
The Recordings 2
The Musical Transcriptions 4
The Notation 5
Orthography 8
Outline of the Chapters 9
How (Not) to Use this Book 10
1 The Telegraph without Wire 13
Secret or Little-known? 15
The Articulate ‘Stammerer’ 16
Previous Studies of Speech Surrogacy and Yorùbá Drumming 19
The Yorùbá People and their Religious Practices 20
Yorùbá Drums 23
The Bàtá’s Repertoire 24
Research Collaborators 27
2 An Extension of Mouth: How the Bàtá Talks 37
The Bàtá’s Textual Repertoire 38
A Critique of Previous Literature on the Bàtá’s Drum Language 46
Towards a Grammar of the Bàtá’s Speech Surrogacy System 52
Summary 66
3 Other Voices: The Omele Mẹ́ta and the Ìyáàlù Dùndún 69
The Omele Mẹ́ta 69
Comparing the Omele Mẹ́ta’s Speech Surrogacy with the
Traditional Bàtá 73
The Ìyáàlù Dùndún 77
Comparing the Ìyáàlù Dùndún’s Speech Surrogacy with the
Ìyáàlù Bàtá 79
vi Ancient Text Messages of the Yorùbá Bàtá Drum
A Concluding Comparison of the Bàtá, the Omele Mẹ́ta and
the Dùndún 88
4 Speaking in Codes: Ẹnà Bàtá 91
Ẹnà Terminology and Devices 94
Drum Ẹnà – The Mapping of Vocables onto the Bàtá 95
The Transformation of ‘Natural Language’ into ‘Machine
Language’ 105
The Mapping of Yorùbá Language onto Ẹnà Bàtá 109
Spoken Ẹnà – Expanding the Code 113
Broken Ẹnà – Mixing up the Code 114
Conclusions about Ẹnà Bàtá 116
Epilogue: Bàtá is the Mouthpiece of Awo 119
Separating Performer, Instrument and Listener 120
Secrecy, Revelation, Ethics and the Impact of Scholarly
Research 122
Coda 123
Appendix I: Research Methods 127
Appendix II: Musical Transcriptions and Text Translations 131
Bibliography 163
Discography 167
Index 169
List of Illustrations
i.i. Panning of the bàtá ensemble on the recordings 5
i.ii. ìyáàlù open 6
i.iii. ìyáàlù mute 6
i.iv. ìyáàlù slap 6
i.v. omele abo open 6
i.vi. omele abo mute 6
1.1. The bàtá ensemble (from left) – ìyáàlù, omele abo,
omele akọ 25
1.2. Bílálà 25
1.3. Chief Alhaji Rábíù Àyándòkun 30
1.4. ’Túndé Adégbọlá 35
2.1. Shape of the vocal tract for vowel [i] 50
3.1. The omele mẹ́ta 70
3.2. The playing arrangement of the omele mẹ́ta 73
3.3. The ìyáàlù dùndún 80
4.1. The Yorùbá-ẹnà-bàtá communication cycle 106
4.2. The transformation of natural language into machine
language 107
5.1. The three-tiered flow of information 120
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List of Tables
2.1. Oyèlámì’s scheme for vowel encoding 48
3.1. Coinciding word differentiations between the dùndún
and bàtá 84
4.1. Ẹnà and drum stoke pairings, arranged by vowel
pitch and intensity 99
4.2. Consonants used on the three tones 101
4.3. Consonant and vowel combinations 103
4.4. A rudimentary scheme of ẹnà vocables 104
4.5. Numbers in ẹnà 115