in another. When three or four balangi
play together, two of them often have many notes in common, while the others
have notes foreign to the scale suggested by the first two.Country in West Africa. It has an area of 73, 326 km2 and a population of 4·87 millon (2000 estimate). Colonized by the British in the early 19th century, the state became independent in 1961 and a Republic in 1971. The population comprises the Mende in the south and the Temne in the north, with a number of smaller ethnic groups, including the Kissi, Malinké (Maninka), Fula (FulBe) and Krio.
Although Sierra Leone is a relatively small country, it has a rich variety of music. This is not only because it has different peoples, each with their own musical variety, but also because of their influence on each other. In addition, music is closely connected with dancing, drama, storytelling and the visual arts. Even carving and other arts and crafts are associated with music through the use of masks and costumes by dancers who act as the embodiments of certain spirits, and through the decoration of such instruments as the kamanine (ivory trumpet; fig.1).
Praise-songs are widespread, and travelling musicians may earn a living by composing, singing and accompanying songs in praise of their rich benefactors. Festive songs and songs for or about chiefs are also common, and stories are usually interspersed with songs. Almost anything may be the subject of a song, and chains of songs are common in which the singing proceeds from one subject to another; the tune may change with the subject but the unbroken instrumental accompaniment ensures that the chain itself has musical unity. Group items may be instrumental, vocal or a combination of instruments and voices; if they are purely vocal, they are often accompanied by hand-clapping. Much music of all kinds is provided by the societies that train the young as members of the community. Songs and instrumental pieces are often performed specifically for dancing; dance-songs deal with various subjects (e.g. farming) or they may tell complete stories.
The enormous number of instruments, and the names given to them in the different languages, make it impossible to list more than the most remarkable ones and their usual names. Two lamellophones are common in Sierra Leone, the smaller one in the north among Temne, Limba and Loko musicians, the larger one in both north and south. The small one, most commonly called kondi (fig.2), on which slender tongues are plucked with the thumbs, is a melodic instrument; the large kongoma (fig.3) is a rhythm instrument on which broader tongues are plucked with the fingers of one hand while a rhythm is tapped out on the sound box with the other. Although its tongues produce different pitches, it has a drum-like sound.
A xylophone, commonly called balangi (fig.4), is used in the north by Susu, Malinké, Yalunka and Koranko (Kuranko) musicians, and also among the Temne. The bowl-shaped drums (bote) in the illustration are played with the right hand while the left, with rings on the thumb and two fingers, strikes a metal clapper (baba). A common type of drum with many names, of which sangbai is possibly the best known, varies considerably in detail but is always more or less conical, with one skin at the wider end, and open at the other; it is always played with hands and fingers (never with sticks), the hand- and finger-work making for greater variety of pitch and tone. There are double-headed drums in many varieties and sizes, including the hourglass drum (see Drum, §I, 2(ii)(c), for which the Limba name is hutamba. Another instrument of definite pitch is the common slit-drum (fig.5), possibly best known as kelei, made from a hollow log or cane with one to four slits. Pitch variety is obtained by striking the instrument between or on either side of the slits, near the ends of the log or cane, or near the middle. The most widespread instrument in the south and east, played only by women, is a gourd rattle strung with a network of beads, shells or buttons, and best known by the name segbureh (fig.6).
Chordophones and side-blown horns and flutes, while less common than any of the foregoing, are also found, as well as a variety of different struck, shaken and scraped idiophones. Some string instruments may have been brought into Sierra Leone by travelling Fula and Malinké musicians from Guinea, Senegal and The Gambia; among these instruments are the 21-string Kora bridge harp, used by Malinké; musicians, and the nyayaru, a one-string fiddle played by the Fula and adopted by the Temne (fig.7). Mende chordophones in the south, like the one-string musical bow and the koningei, a frame zither with several strings, do not seem to be connected with any influx from the north. A small three-string pluriarc, called kondingi (fig.8), is found among the Susu and Temne; and a harp-lute called kondene is used to accompany Yalunka hunting-songs.
Throughout Sierra Leone, male soloists and choruses tend to sing in a high register, but female voices are often low in pitch. Apart from the falsetto technique used by male altos, voice production is often fairly natural and related to that of the speaking or calling voice. Singers from the north, however, frequently produce the forceful tone and ‘metallic’ resonance associated with North Africa. Songs may be unembellished but are sometimes ornamented, particularly by the more celebrated singers. A recitative style of singing is widespread, and song-, speech- and call-like elements are often found within one song.
Musical phrases vary greatly in length. An important phrase in an instrumental piece may be repeated and varied, or divided into sections that in turn are varied: a number of such important phrases may be presented in succession. Songs may have refrains that return periodically, but the refrains may undergo changes in the course of the song. Responsorial singing is widespread, and solo singing occurs among Fula and Malinké musicians in the north. Songs frequently have a staggered beginning, with the different instruments and voices entering in succession. The first phrase or sentence of a song may form an introduction that is not repeated in the song, and such a tune may include notes foreign to the scale on which the rest of the song is built, or it may be built on a different type of scale altogether.
Some songs are stanzaic in structure, and each verse may consist of a solo phrase and answering sentence sung by the solo and chorus together; the verses may be separated by instrumental interludes and may vary in detail. But singing may also be continuous, especially if there are several solo singers whose contributions interlock, each in its own way, with the chorus. At times the overall structure may be uncertain, with the organization and theme or themes changing several times before the end, while the ending itself may introduce an entirely new idea or a different tonality. Within a song there is often movement from comparative simplicity to greater complexity, and sometimes a general quickening of tempo.
Vocal combinations vary from unison singing to three-part polyphony. The simplest type of partsinging is one voice sustaining a note while another singer has a tune. The next type is a more deliberate harmonization of individual notes or sections of a tune, when the supporting voice may be either above or below the main melody. Parallel singing is not usually heard for long stretches, but may continue for the whole of a musical phrase. In many songs, particularly in the south and east, the different voices are far more independent; just as each instrument may have its own rhythm, each voice in polyphonic singing may have its own melody, with the same freedom to change when appropriate. The combination of a solo singer with a two-part chorus may lead to three-part singing; occasionally the chorus may split into three parts. The most original polyphony comes from Vai (Gallinas), Kissi, Kono and Mende singing.
Freedom of vocal rhythm is revealed particularly in songs with hand-clapping. The claps do not indicate beats but simply mark strict, equal divisions against which is set the free rhythm of the singing. Some instruments tend to act as time markers, to which the other instruments set their rhythms, so that instruments playing together often give the impression that each has its own independent rhythm, with freedom to change it at strategic points. They may alternate subtle and exciting rhythmic sections with sections of quiet, steady rhythms, and the exciting sections on different instruments may be staggered.
Most songs and pieces are based on definite scales, although chromatic notes may occur and both scale and tonal centre may change during the music. Songs are sometimes bitonal with singing and playing based on different scales, and occasionally, although with a lesser degree of tonal contrast, the same applies to soloist and chorus. Some instrumental pieces are built on tetratonic scales, and other pieces and songs appear to be pentatonic, hexatonic or heptatonic; many of them are found to be more complex when their tonality is investigated. All or part of a song melody sometimes rises or falls in pitch gradually as the song proceeds; in playing kondi, kongoma and certain harp-like chordophones such as the kondene the force and manner of plucking may make the pitch of certain tongues or strings change during a piece.
The
tuning of instruments is not standardized and varies widely on the kongoma.
The balangi is always heptatonic; the kondi may be pentatonic or
hexatonic but a note missing in one octave may appear in the next octave.
‘Chromatic’ alteration is achieved on both instruments (and also on string
instruments) by having, for example, a D in one octave and a D in another. When three or four balangi
play together, two of them often have many notes in common, while the others
have notes foreign to the scale suggested by the first two.
There has been an increase of mutual influence between rural and urban music. Krio musicians in the capital city of Freetown can be hired to play goombay music at weddings and wakes, but the goombay, a drum resembling a four-legged stool with a drumhead seat, may now also be encountered in small villages far from any towns. Music in such villages may demonstrate a marked relationship with ‘milo jazz’, which flourished in Freetown in the 1970s and 80s. The song texts may represent a mixture of different languages. At the same time, urban popular dance bands may include a few rural musical instruments in their ensembles and show an interest in particular rural performance styles.
C. van Oven: ‘Music of Sierra Leone’, African Arts, iii/4 (1970), 20–27, 71
C. van Oven: ‘Op zoek naar de muziek van Sierra Leone’, Mens en melodie, xxviii (1973), 244–7
C. van Oven: ‘The Kondi of Sierra Leone’, AfM, v/3 (1973–4), 77–85
C. van Oven: ‘Liederen en instrumenten uit Sierra Leone’, Mens en melodie, xxix (1974), 24–8
N. Ware: ‘Popular Music and African Identity in Freetown, Sierra Leone’, Eight Musical Cultures: Tradition and Change, ed. B. Nettl (Urbana, IL, 1978), 296–320
C.D. Horton: Indigenous Music of Sierra Leone: an Analysis of Resources and Educational Implications (diss., UCLA, 1979)
C. van Oven: An Introduction to the Music of Sierra Leone (Freetown, 1981) [incl. cassette]
J. Henggeler: ‘Ivory Trumpets of the Mende’, African Arts, xiv/2 (1982), 59–63
C. van Oven: Supplement to an Introduction to the Music of Sierra Leone (Freetown, 1982) [incl. cassette]
C.D. Horton: ‘Popular Bands of Sierra Leone: 1920 to the Present’, BPM, xii (1984), 183–92
J.W. Nunley: ‘Music of the Freetown Societies’, Moving with the Face of the Devil (Urbana, IL, 1987), 160–75
B. Sievers: Musik in Sierra Leone: Tradition, Wandel und Identitätsverlust einer Musikkultur in West-Afrika (Hamburg, 1992)
S. Ottenberg: ‘One Face of a Culture: Two Musical Ensembles in a Limba Chiefdom, Sierra Leone’, Carrefour de cultures: mélanges offerts ŕ Jacqueline Leiner, ed. R. Antoine (Tubingen, 1993), 57–75
Music of the Mende of Sierra Leone, Folkways F-4322 (1965) [incl. notes by G. Schulze]
Sierra Leone: musiques traditionelles, Ocora 580036 (1980)
Music of Sierra Leone: Kono Mende Farmers' Songs, Folkways F-4330 (1981) [incl. notes by S. Leigh]
Sierra Leone Music: West African Gramophone Records Recorded at Freetown in the 50s and Early 60s, Zensor ZS41 (1987)
COOTJE VAN OVEN