Melodic Language and Linguistic Melodies: Text Setting in Igbo

There are no other sense-altering aspects of culture that equate with language’s effect on aural perception (hearing). Increased sensitivity to pitch is a cognitive characteristic in the 60% of the world’s ethnolinguistic cultures that speak tone languages (Yip 2002). Lexical tone is a pitch contrast akin to the contour of a melody that distinguishes between words. An example is [íké] (high-high, like a repeated note) and [íkè] (high-low, like a falling interval) which forms a minimal pair between the Ìgbò words for strength and buttocks. Being a tone language speaker also impacts ways of musicking, especially singing. This is the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where “language and music are tied, as if by an umbilical cord” (Agawu 2016:113). A favorite tool for evangelism among 19th- and 20th-century European missionaries in West Africa was to translate European hymn texts into the language of the missionized and teach them to sing the translation to the original hymn tune. An example included in the video is “All hail the power of Jesus’ name” which is often sung to the Coronation hymn tune by Oliver Holden (1792). Unfortunately, early missionaries would translate the texts metrically (to preserve the number of syllables) but had no understanding of the necessary tone. Because of the link between lyrics and melody in tone languages, composers of vocal music in tone languages have argued that one should not compose vocal music in isolation from text or vice-versa. In 1974, Laz Ekwueme, a doctoral advisee of Allen Forte, published an article on Ìgbò text setting and harmonization. In addition to parallel harmony, Ekwueme recommends staggering text (as in European polyphony or African call-and-response) and using alliterative sounds (vocables and onomatopoeia) in subordinate voices. Drawing on field recordings gathered in Nigeria from 2011–2020 by the authors, and commentary by Ekwueme and Dr. Christian Onyeji, this SMT-V article studies the phenomenon of “tone-and-tune” in Ìgbò culture. Compositions by Laz Èkwúèmé, Sam Òjúkwū, Christian Ònyéji, Joshua Úzọ̀ígwē Commentary by Laz Èkwúèmé, Christian Ònyéjì Performances by Ogene Uzodinma, Laz Ekwueme Chorale, Agbani-Nguru Ikorodo, Lagos City Chorale, Elizabeth Ime Ònyéjì, University of Lagos Choir, Morehouse College Glee Club Video scores by Ebruphiyor Omodoro Field recordings and interviews are provided by the Africana Digital Ethnography Project (ADEPt), with support from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Fulbright Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Toward an Understanding of "Ashé" as an Aesthetic Condition

As an artist and cultural investigator specializing in contemporary art theory and practice, my area of research is centered on African spiritual and aesthetic retentions, rediscoveries and reinventions in the African diaspora. As an educator, my pedagogical interest is in constructing new and innovative teaching methods to critically analyze works of art. I was therefore eager to introduce the concept of ashé as an aesthetic criterion to my students and colleagues but needed to test my hypothesis. To that end I created a research project to assess the viabilityof my hypothesis. The results of my investigation led to the creation of a series of four weekly workshops that challenge participants to conduct critical analyses of works of art using ashé as a criterion along with the accepted formal elements of art and principles of design. To date, I have conducted these workshops with a diverse population of students from Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Emory University and Colgate University. Spelman College’s African Diaspora and the World program (ADW)1 has embraced my project and a number of faculty members have used it in the classroom with promising results. The primary purpose of this essay is to introduce the project to a broader audience of students, educators, and scholars.

Apprenticed to the Word

This chapter describes the individuals who influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. as a preacher. It was from Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse College, that King first heard the challenge “Clearly, then, it isn’t how long one lives that is important, but how well he lives, what he contributes to mankind and how noble the goals toward which he strives. Longevity is good . . . but longevity is not all-important.” King paraphrased this sentiment many times in his career, perhaps most poignantly in his speech in Memphis the night before his death. King also discovered three mediating influences who, like Mays, appreciated a good theological argument and, like King Sr., sat astride enormous urban congregations. These influences were William Holmes Borders, Sandy Ray, and Gardner C. Taylor.

Conclusion

The conclusion seeks to understand the last decade of John Hervey Wheeler’s life through a discussion about his lasting legacy as a banker and civil rights lawyer. It explains that Wheeler received a number of accolades ranging from honorary doctorates to a building named in his honor on the campus of his alma mater, Morehouse College, in 1976. Wheeler’s children, Julia Wheeler Taylor and Warren Hervey Wheeler, became the ultimate beneficiaries of their father’s “black business activism,” and they went on to have pioneering careers in banking and aviation. The conclusion identifies some of the black leaders that Wheeler mentored who went on to have successful careers in politics, business, and law in the decades that followed, taking up the mantle of leadership from Wheeler. Moreover, North Carolina congressman G. K. Butterfield from the state’s First District, which includes Durham, pushed through Congress H.R. 3460 to name the federal courthouse in Durham the John Hervey Wheeler United States Courthouse.

Intelligence Plus Character

When you walk into the Character Lab office, the very first thing you'll see are the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” The quote comes from an essay King published in the Morehouse College campus newspaper around his 18th birthday. King opens his argument with an observation: “I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education.” A common mistake, he says, is in seeing only one of two aims. The more obvious goal of education is “to become more efficient,” particularly in “thinking logically and scientifically.” Today, we might say we send our kids to school to become critical thinkers. “Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.” Another—perhaps less obvious—goal is to cultivate character: “But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society,” King wrote. “The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

The Brawn of the Black Mecca and the Black New South

Chapter 2 focuses on the emergence of a feisty black lawyer named Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr., who became Atlanta’s first black Vice-Mayor and subsequently Atlanta’s first black mayor. Jackson’s mayoral tenure marked the first of its kind in terms of black big city leadership and bolstered the black Mecca image. Jackson’s emergence was the fruition of caste and class within black Atlanta. He was a fifth generation Georgian, born into two of Atlanta’s prominent black families. As the grandson of prominent black Atlantans Andrew Jackson and John Wesley Dobbs, Jackson graduated Morehouse College at age 18 and went on to receive legal training in Durham, North Carolina. Jackson cut his teeth as a champion for the people and made headlines as the people’s politician with his quixotic 1968 run for the U.S. Senate against Senator Herman Talmadge. Jackson’s first term as mayor of Atlanta was full of political success. However, during his second term as mayor, many of his working class and poor black constituency felt as if he sacrificed them to play politics.