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Variation Procedures In Northern Ewe Song, V. Kofi Agawu

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The major organizational principle of Northern Ewe song is one shared by numerous African, Oriental, and European musical traditions: a small number of models (variously described as "basic shapes," "archetypes," "background structures," "basic designs," "core patterns," "deep structures") is transformed in a wide variety of ways during performance. Variation takes place on different hierarchic levels both within and between songs and includes practically all of a song's dimensions (rhythm, interval, register, contour, harmony, and so on). This principle, although widely demonstrated in the literature on African song (see, among others, Jones 1976; Kauffman 1984; Schmidt 1984; and Erlmann 1985), is …