' ^ !• 1 ^ I II 
by Paul Austerlitz Attracting scholars from a wide array of academic 
j 
disciplines, popular music studies are burgeoning today. The excel- 
A Synesthetic 
Approach to 
Black Atlantic 
_ Aesthetics 
lence of musical scholarship by anthropologists and literary critics 
demonstrates that the ability to read music and conduct musical 
analysis is byno means requisite tor working in this areaTTToming 
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from q performance background, 
however, I am often 
struck by the absence of attention 
to style and aesthetics 
in much academic writings 
on Latin and Caribbean 
music. This, of course, issues 
at least partly from the fact 
that the Techniques of musical 
analysis, allied with the 
study of yVestern art music, 
litical, ec 
aref.Jsimply irrelevant to the 
political, economic, and gender 
questions that dominate 
much of today's humanistic 
discourse. In 1958, Charles 
Seeger warned against assuming 
that a visual medium 
can represent aural experience, 
but he did not advocate 
the turning away from 
musical notation and analysis. 
He instead made the 
now-classic distinction between 
prescriptive notation, 
which facilitates musical performance, 
ana descriptive notation, 
an analytical tool that 
translates sound into a visual 
medium (1977:168-81). 
Even written texts about music are a type of descriptive 
notation: they represent music in a visual 
medium. Seeger cautioned that musical knowledge is 
not the same as language-based knowledge, but noted 
that there is no way out of this "linguo-centric predicament", 
except to acknowledge that it is inherent to 
the "rnusicological juncture" (1977:46-47). He also 
wrote that the purpose of descriptive notation is not to 
depict every aspect of musical sound - this would only 
overload the reader with too much information 
(1977:170). The objective of descriptive notation israther 
to describe particular aspects of sounds. To this 
end, I use new systems of musical notation as, 
synesthetic hermeneutical tools, clues into Afro-Caribbean 
aesthetics.1 
I was introduced to Caribbean music by playing 
saxophone in merengi/e and salsa bands and have 
often been struck by the extent to which the aesthetic 
mode that I learned in this capacity coincides with West 
African aesthetics, as expressed by my Ghanaian 
teachers, Freeman Donkor, Abraham Adzinyah, and 
Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, and as discussed in the lit- 
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<116 
erature. Looking at diasporic links necessitates a certain 
amount of generalization, therefore statements 
about 'African music' in this article refer to sub-Saharan 
music in general and West African music in particular. 
Without implying that all sub-Saharan music 
are identical, then, I follow Nketia's observation that 
African musics "form a network of distinct yet related 
traditions which overlap in certain aspects of style...and 
share common features...These related musical traditions 
constitute a family" (1974:4; also see Agawu 
1995:1). Along similar lines, my generalizations about 
diasporictiesthetics do not imply a monolithic view of 
black Atlantic cultures; on the contrary, as I argue 
elsewhere, these cultures form a variegated constellation, 
not a uniform soundscape (Austerlitz 1 998; also 
see Gilroy 1993:79-80). Nevertheless, there is a great 
deal of aesthetic unity in the African diaspora. 
In European terms, musical time is organized 
according to numerically patterned systems of beats, 
or mefers. While these are not identical to Western 
meters, Middle-Eastern and South Asian notions of 
musical time also assign numbers to regularly occurring 
rhythmic patterns. Rural African and Caribbean 
musicians, on the other hand, do not attach numerical 
values to music. The aural and kinesthetic interest 
engendered by a timeline, or bell pattern, used in much 
West African and Caribbean musics (Ewe agbekor, 
Haitian Vodou, Cuban bata) is forged by shifting patterns 
of aural attention to component rhythms. Because 
these can be analyzed as several simultaneously 
occurring meters, Westerners often call African 
and Afro-Caribbean rhythms "polymetric." Igbo 
ethnomusicologist and composer, Meki Nzewi, however, 
argues that the notions of "[p]olymetricity and 
polyrhythmicity are aberrations of African musical 
thought," which "do not apply to the feeling, motion, 
and relational organization implicit in African ensemble 
music relationships and structuring. Pursuing them 
results in shadow casting and impairment of perception" 
(1997:41). The validity of applying Western meter 
and musical notation to African musics has been hotly 
debated. Agawu points out that Western music notation 
is a useful tool because it "facilitate[s] entry into 
the world of African musical art" (1995:187; see Jones 
1959; Locke 1987 and 1990; Arom 1991; Wilcken 
1992; Amira and Cornelius 1992; Yih 1995, Anku 
n.d.). But Agawu also agrees that "suggestive" writing 
such as Chernoff's (and, I would add, Thompson's) 
has been most successful at conveying the "feel" of 
African arts (1995: 185; see Chernoff 1979; Thompson 
1983). This essay combines new visual tools with verbal 
description in a synesthetic discourse aimed at
conveying this 'feel.' 
Philip Harland and James Koetting developed 
the Time Unit Box System of notation (TUBS) for African 
music. Representing an underlying regular pulse 
at the level of precision heard by a trained observer, 
TUBS indicates each sound and silence as it occurs 
without reference to Western meter (Koetting 1970). 
Depicted in rows of boxes, each box represents a pulse. 
Empty boxes are silent, while boxes filled with dots or 
other symbols represent various sounds. Textiling 
notation is my adaptation for a version of TUBS that 
Koetting once used, which fills, squares in instead of 
placing dots in them (1980:1 79). While Koetting used 
a uniform color, textiling notation uses different shades 
of gray to represent different sounds. The result bears 
an uncanny similarity to West African narrow strip textiles. 
Robert Farris Thompson relates the visual 
patterning of West African narrow strip textiles to 
diasporic musics, calling them "rhythmized ...designs 
virtually to be scanned metrically, in visual resonance 
with the famed off-beat phrasing of melodic accents 
of African and Afro-American music" (Thompson 
1984:207). Of Mande origin, but pervasive throughout 
West Africa since at least the twelfth century, these 
textiles are made on mens' horizontal looms and consist 
of variegated rectangular weft blocks. The strips 
are sewn together in ways that stagger the blocks to 
form juxtaposing patterns. Thompson argues that these 
juxtapositions are visual equivalents of African and 
African-American musical rhythms: "as multiple meter 
distinguishes the traditional music of black Africa, 
emphatic multi-strip composition distinguishes the cloth 
of West Africa" (1984:208). Compare the visual 
rhythms of the Asante cloth at Figure One to the 
textiling notation of Afro-Caribbean rhythms at Figures 
Two to Five; visual representation of the music 
reveals an underlying aesthetic unity of black Atlantic 
visual and aural arts. 
Westerners often focus on rhythm in African and 
Caribbean music, but sound quality and pitch are 
also paramount. Koetting uses the term "sonority" to 
refer to the aggregate of pitch, loudness, tone quality, 
and carrying power of drums, noting the importance 
of sonority to West African drumming (1970:120). The 
facts that the Ewe master drum, atsimewu, uses nine 
different sonorities and that Latin jazz musician, 
Giovanni Hidalgo is said to produce fifteen sounds 
from a single conga head underscore the importance 
of sonority in black Atlantic drumming (Jones 1959:67, 
68). The pervasive links between African speech and 
drumming underline the forced nature of separating 
these realms (see e.g. Agawu 1995:2). Charging that 
the Western "notion of rhythm as [a] statistical com- 
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putation which can have independent structure... does 
not... belong to African philosophy and practice of 
music," Nzewi argues that African "drum playing is a 
process of deriving a rhythmic essence melodically, 
that is, as melo-rbythm " (1997:32-33, 34, my emphasis; 
also see Nzewi 1974). Even in Western terms, 
the bifurcation of melody and rhythm is contradictory 
since all melodies have duration as well as pitch. My 
own performance experience with Caribbean music 
focuses on rhythms performed on fixed-pitch (or "melodic") 
instruments: saxophone riffs, or/a/eos, afford 
Dominican merengue a colorful confluence of melody, 
timbre, and rhythm that many see as the heart of the 
music's vibrancy (Austerlitz 1986:3). Forall the beauty 
of their drumming, popular musics such as salsa, 
merengue, and soucous foreground the fixed-pitch 
sounds of human voices, trumpet, saxophone, piano, 
and guitar. The tone-shades of textiling notation are 
intended to synesthetically match up with these sounds, 
underscoring the essentially melodic color of rhythm. 
Responsorial structures underlie black Atlantic 
musics; while call-and-response singing is perhaps 
the most obvious manifestation of this. Arguing that 
even the complex polyrhythms of African drumming 
are responsorial at their core, John Miller Chernoff 
notes that while Western students of African drumming 
usually find iteasierto play a pattern isolated from its 
ensemble context, the very idea of playing one part 
alone is foreign to the African sensibility: 
We can think of this difference in sensibilities as 
the difference between conceiving a rhythm as something 
to 'get with' or as something to 'respond to'... 
[Chernoff's drumming teacher] Ibrahim felt that isolated 
beating was meaningless without a second 
rhythm...There was no conversation (1979:55, his emphasis). 
In parallel fashion, Nzewi argues that the idea of 
cross-rhythm, often used to explain African music, is 
"antithetical to African social, and therefore, ensemble 
philosophy" because "a community/family/team 
does not work together at cross purposes." This does 
not imply that there is no tension in these rhythms, 
merely that the tension is rooted in interdependence: 
Motive, as well as emotive, suspense is generated 
when two entities tending to bounce into each 
other veer off. A bounce-off effect is generated. When 
anticipations that develop in motive or emotive relationships 
are not resolved or neutralized by actual contact 
there is energy tension, a suspension. But a merger, 
subsumption, or submersion of independence is 
avoided. In some African societies, the bride price is 
never settled in full; in love there is more emotional
intensity when resolution is not attained through 
marriage or physical consummation ( I W ' • » 
my emphasis). 
Nzewi, whose work weds visual and aural 
aesthetics, expounds on bounce-off 
melo-rhythms in Igbo upa art in relation to 
music (1997:36-39). 
Melodies whose constituent notes are distributed 
between more than one fixed-pitch instrument 
or singer are called hockets. Hoc 
permeate BaAka (and other "pygmy") singing, 
much West African flute music, and are basic 
to rara, the one note trumpet and percussion 
processional music performed during Lent in 
Haiti (rara is also endemic in the Dominican 
Republic, where it is called gaga) (see Nketia 
1962). As clear examples of bounce-off 
melo-rhythms, hockets are an appropriate place 
to begin looking at textiling notation. Salsa 
arrangements occasionally use trumpet hockets 
in a technique called the campana (or bell), 
possibly because the hocket technique is basic 
to Western bell playing. Figure Two is the 
textiling notation of two hocketing trumpets in 
a mambo (or instrumental interlude) in salsero 
Perico Ortiz's recording, "Perico lo tiene." As 
the figures' legends show, specific shades of 
gray in textiling notation expresses specific 
pitches or sonorities; in Figure Two, each shade 
indicates a particular note played by a trumpet. 
The lighter the shade, the higher the pitch; 
so the ability to read Western notation is not 
necessary for a passive reading of this visual 
correlate to the sound. The uppertrumpet part 
repeats a note, leaving spaces which the lower 
trumpet part fills in. The resulting two-note 
melo-rhythms forge a different effect than the 
same pitches would create if produced on a 
single instrument: group coordination makes a 
crucial difference. As Chernoff puts it, "the 
notion of participation as a significant gesture 
of active effort" is a "contribution which gives 
life and meaning" (1979:164). 
This interactiveness is not limited to the 
aural sphere; dance is associated with most 
(though not all) black Atlantic musics. TheTwi 
language has no equivalent of the English word 'music' 
Maxwell Amoh suggests that the closest term is 
agErE, an aggregate of drumming, singing, and dance 
translatable as "dance theater" (p.c). Similarly, Caribbean 
genres such as salsa and merengue are dances, 
as much as musical forms. Aural rhythms are thus 
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< 1 1 8 ^ 
Legend 
Legend 
Figure 3: 1 2/8 Rhythm 
timeline (bell) 
Figure 1: Nineteenth-century Asante narrow strip textile 
From Thompson 1983:216; used with permission 
Figure 2: Hocket Rhythms in trumpets 
(Perico lo tiene), recorded by Luis "Perico" Ortiz 
first trumpet 
second trumpet 
drum 
dancers' motorbeat 
dancers' motorbeat 
supporting drum 
timeline (bell) 
best understood in the context of related body movement. 
Fanti master drummer, Abraham Adzinyah talks 
about a "hidden rhythm" expressed in the bottom line 
of the textiling notation at Figure Three, which he keeps 
ln t h e b a c k o f his mind while improvising to the timeline, 
played on a bell, a t the top line of this figure (Chernoff
Figure 4: Merengue Jaleo I 
saxophone 
tambora 
dancer's motorbeat 
Tambora legend
Open tone 
Slap 
Stick on drum's rim 
Figure 5 : Chorus from "Mambo" (Arcano y sus Maravillas) 
high voices | m am | 
low voices 
• Legend 
m 
1979:50). Because it is also often expressed in dance 
movement, Koetting calls it the "dancers' motorbeat" 
(1970:134, sometimes it is performed aurally, in which 
case it can be called a "guiding pulse sense" [Nzewi 
p.c.]). Figure Three combines the dancers' motorbeat, 
the timeline, and a common drum rhythm (the kagan 
in agbekor, the okonkolo in batd, the bula in Voudou;). 
Representing the motorbeat and the drum, the two 
lower lines express the bounce-off aesthetic: one can 
seethe motor activity bouncing off the aural stimulation, 
as dancers are lifted up by the drum rhythm and 
implanted in its wake. As.Ewe master drummer and 
dancer, Freeman Donkor, used to tell his students, 
drummers are 'cheerleaders' of dancers, encouraging 
them, spurring them on (p.c). Figure Three also 
shows where the timeline meets and veers off the other 
rhythms: it coincides with the motorbeat at the first 
and last occurrence of the motorbeat and coincides 
with both strokes of the drum only at one point, the 
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Saxophone legend 
i p 
3SE 
D 
fifth and sixth squares. The rest of the time 
it veers around the drum. In resonance 
with the visual connections made by 
Thompson, Nzewi, and myself, Ruth Stone 
resorts to a visual metaphor in arguing 
that this timeline is best understood as a 
"mosaic" (1985:140,142; my emphasis). 
In a typical African-inspired aesthetic, 
the patterns played by the 
double-headed tambora drum and saxophone, 
and the movement of dancers' feet 
in Dominican merengue form dove-tailing 
melo-rhythms. The most prominent percussive 
sound in merengue is a roll in open 
tones of the tambora, shown in the middle line of 
Figure Four as dark gray squares. Note that the roll 
consists of four strokes, although it can give the impression 
of having five since the ear easily misinterprets 
the bass slap preceding the roll as an open 
tone. This roll leads in to the dancers' motorbeat, 
shown in the bottom line of Figure Four, always 
bouncing off one motorbeat pulse and landing on 
the next. The tambora roll thus gives dancers a lift 
before implanting them. Typically articulated by electric 
bass, as well as by tambora, the implanting beat 
is strong. Saxophones, however, tend to omit the 
motorbeat pulse and, instead, come in immediately 
after it, as in the top line of Figure Four. Typical 
saxophone jaleos, such as this one, echo the tambora 
roll pattern with a similar rhythm that begins immediately 
after the tambora's final stroke. In this way, the 
saxophones propel the dancers immediately after the 
tambora implants them (Austerlitz 1 997:57-58). Of 
twenty-four saxophone jaleos transcribed for a previ-
ous study, seventeen follow this pattern (Austerlitz 
1986:163,165). 
The Afro-Cuban band, Arcano y sus Maravillas' 
classic recording entitled "Mambo, " composed by 
Orestes and Israel ("Cachao") Lopez, combines elements 
of hocket and the mosaic effects. The vocal 
chorus of this arrangement, expressed in textiling notation 
at Figure Five, features two interacting choruses. 
The rhythm sung by the low voices, shown 
in the bottom line, is often used in piano montunos 
(or ostinatos), while the higher part, shown in the 
top line, is a common horn rhythm. The top 
part dominates, but the bottom peeks through, 
especially when the bottom is silent, most notably 
at squares four and five. The hocketing 
mosaic creates an equivocal melo-rhythm that 
is difficult for the ear to grasp (see Kubik 
1979:224-25 and 1962). Cachao's recent 
recording of this classic, in fact, dispenses with 
the two vocal choruses and conflates the two parts 
in a unilinear aggregate (Cachao 1994 and 
1995:25). 
Visual art is static in time (even if it engages the 
eye in temporal play). Music, however, moves through 
time by definition. But time is hard to fathom, as St. 
Augustine puts it: "si nemo me quareat, sc/o, si 
quaerenti explicare velim, nescio" (When no one asks, 
I know what it is, but when I wish to explain it to someone 
who does ask, I don't know) (Husserl 1964:21). 
Musicologists often study musical time as a statistical 
calculation but generally shirk from confronting it as 
lived experience. Suzanne Longer (1953:104,19) and 
de Selicourt (1958:152-60) contrast the "sequence of 
actual happenings" (or "clock time") with 
non-durational "virtual time," maintaining that music 
evokes the latter. De Selicourt writes that: 
Music suspends ordinary time and offers itself 
as an ideal substitute and equivalent. Nothing is more 
metaphorical or more forced in music than a suggestion 
that time is passing while we listen to it 
(1958:287). 
The phenomenologist, Alfred Schutz contrasts 
"outer time" with "inner time," arguing that music is 
the "arrangement of tones in inner time" (1971:1 70; 
cited in Merriam 1982:373). Clocktime and Western 
musical meter are quantitative perceptions, while inner 
time is a qualitative condition: "having a good 
time" is irrelevant to knowing "what time it is." As 
Schutz notes, the fact that two recordings of popular 
songs last about three minutes each is important to a 
radio deejay but "entirely immaterial to the listener;" 
similarly, slow and fast movements of a symphony may 
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Inner circle: dancers' motorbeat 
Middle circle: supporting drum 
Outer circle: timeline (bell) 
take as long but seem to be different lengths 
(1976:37). We experience overlapping qualitative and 
quantitative perceptions of time when return trips seem 
to go faster than initial trips, and in the phenomenon 
of time going faster as we grow older. 
Arguing that "time exists primarily within us" as 
"a relationship between people and the events they 
perceive," music theorist Jonathan Kramer notes that 
"events, not time, are in flux. And music is a series of 
events, events that not only contain time but shape 
it." Asserting that music has "the power to distort or 
even destroy time," Kramer writes about linear and 
non-linear time, maintaining that both exist in music. 
He identifies lineartime with left brain thinking, defining 
it as "the determination of some characteristic^] 
of music in accordance with principles that arise from 
earlier events" and non-linearity with right brain thinking, 
defining it as "the determination of some 
characteristic^] of music in accordance with principles 
governing an entire piece or section" (1988:xiii, 
Figure 6 
12/8 Rhythm 
Same legend as Figure 3
Figure 7 
Merengue Jaleo I 
Same legend as Figure 4 
Inner circle: dancers' motorbeat 
Middle Circle: tambora 
Outer circle: saxophone 
5, 20). Kramer draws an analogy between the architectural 
structures of Western classical music (e.g. 
the sonata form) and Western linear time as expressed 
in Christian doctrine (e.g. the Last Coming) or the 
nineteenth century novel (plot with climax). McClary 
makes similar connections while relating Western goalorientation 
to masculinity and non-teleological modes 
to the feminine (1991:119, 146-47, 155; also see 
6storl993). 
Many observers have suggested that African and 
Caribbean musics are especially allied with virtual 
time (Blacking 1971:37; Merriam 1982; Stone 
1982:72,1985; Averill 1989:20; AusteriHz 1997:96). 
Kramer argues that increased Western contact with 
non-Western cultures has brought about an ascendance 
of non-linear time in twentieth-century Western 
art music (1988:387). In resonance with the fact that 
Africans do not attach numerical values to musical 
time, Mbiti shows that "numerical calendars...do not 
exist in traditional African societies" and that "the lin- 
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ear concept of time...is practically foreign to African 
thinking" (1970:24,21, cited in Merriam 1982:456). 
Nzewi adds that unlike "Western statistical thought,... 
the African concept of time, including musical time, 
deriving from nature,... is cyclic" (1997:33). 
The fact that most musical notations are displayed 
horizontally is at odds with this cyclicity. 
Seeger wrote that the "chain or stream" of linear 
music notation distorts even the reality of Western 
music, since sonic links are fused in the 
musical experience (1977:169). Circular notation, 
such as that used by Nzewi (1997:46- 
48), Becker (1979), and Nelson (1991) for 
West African, Javanese, and South Indian 
musics, respectively, circumvents this erroneous 
impression. Figures Six to Eight translate 
the linear textiling notation of Figures Two to 
Five into cyclic textiling notation. Here, the 
twelve noon position corresponds to the linear 
grids' beginnings at the far left. Circular visual 
scanning creates a response consonant with hypnotic 
virtual time because it places less emphasis 
on beginnings and endings. 
Schutz notes that human beings experience many 
"provinces of meaning" or "levels of reality," which 
range from "the world of daily life" to theoretical contemplation, 
dreams, and various types of fantasy. He 
notes that Western classical music turns our attention 
away from the mundane world, suspending practical 
everyday concerns and calls the transitions from one 
reality to another, a 'leap' or 'shock.' We 'leap' from 
one state to another, for example, from not listening to 
music to listening, from dreaming to waking, or from 
playing with a child to watching news about the latest 
war on TV (1970:104, also see 1962:230 and Skarda 
1 989:50-57). Bounce-off melo-rhythms can be 
analyzed in Western terms, according to time measurement, 
but their aesthetic function is to create particular 
kinds of time. Shifts of these aural universes 
within a single performance of black Atlantic music 
resemble Schutz's 'leaps,' except that they occur within 
a single musical experience rather than marking the 
transition from non-musical to musical experience. Ruth 
Stone uses Schutz's phenomenology to elaborate on 
what she calls 'moment time' among the Kpelle of Liberia. 
She writes that the Kpelle recognize, but do not 
emphasize, durational time: they are "cognizant of people 
growing old and time passing in the sense of" outer' 
time [but] this dimension of time is simply not emphasized; 
rather, the Kpelle elaborate the present" 
(1982:72). Non-durational 'momenttime' resembles 
Langer's "virtual time" and Schute's "inner time." Stone
Figure 8 
Merengue Jaleo II 
! 
Same legend as Figure 4 
Inner circle: dancers' motorbeat 
Middle Circle: tambora 
Outer circle: saxophone 
writes that to the Kpelle, "[l]ife consists of a series of 
presents more distinguishable from one another through 
qualitative than quantitative differences" and that Kpelle 
music creates different qualities of the present: "Kpelle 
time is like a bubble in that while it is variably 
expandable, at some point it must cease to expand. 
At the point the bubble bursts, in a similar way the 
participants move to another present in time through 
a leap or a shock" (Stone 1982:72). 
Chernoff argues that James Brown is a master of 
this type of musical timing (1979:115). In this case, 
the transformation is kinesthetic as well as aural; Brown 
brings his band to "the bridge" (the second section of 
an arrangement) exactly when the dancing public aches 
for the change - the shock is a delicious gift. Keil 
notes a similar esthetic in jazz (1966:347; quoted in 
Chernoff 1979:113). I had the opportunity to participate 
in such activity myself when performing with Victor 
Waill's merengue band. Waill brought the momentum 
up gradually, bringing the dancers into a 
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< 1 2 2 > 
pulsating communal groove and keeping them inside 
it until they ached for a release. He then suddenly 
introduced a new rhythm or harmony, changing the 
feeling in the entire hall and giving the public an incredible 
lift: the bubble burst and the participants leapt 
into a new Now (Austerlitz 1997:96-97). 
Such shifts can be sudden, as in James Brown's 
music; in his composition, 'Sex Machine', Brown 
even teases the audience, asking bandmates 
"Should I take them to the bridge?" before actually 
bestowing this gift. But cycles of leaps and 
shocks can also be constant, ever-changing. 
Contemporary accordion-based (f/'p/co; typical, 
authentic) merengue is a case in point: 
here, accordion and saxophone riffs interact 
with percussion and dance rhythms to create 
variegated qualities of aural, kinesthetic, and 
psychic experience. Witness the cyclic textiling 
notation at Figure Seven. The saxophone and 
tambora sounds create a psychic space for dancers 
that engage them kinesthetically and aurally: 
saxophone melo-rhythms bounce off the tambora roll, 
seducing body-motion into complicity with the four-beat 
cycle. Without warning, musicians leap into Figure 
Eight. Dancers are seduced by the new saxophone 
pattern, which is similarto the first one but articulates 
shorter patterns that bounce off every two, instead of 
every four motorbeats. The dancers respond by intensifying 
their steps. Nzewi writes that participation in 
kaleidoscopically changing bounce-off melo-rhythms, 
which can be "bent, interrupted, and resumed...with 
different impressions," engenders what is essentially a 
"psychedelic" experience (1997:33, my emphasis). 
Textiling notation provides a visual correlate to 
this life-wave, but its static nature cannot express music's 
ever-changing quality, so we reach the end of 
this musicological juncture.GR 
NOTES 
1 Seeger, Charles. 1977. Studies in Musicology, 1953-1975. Berkeley: 
University of California Press, Pg. 168-81. 
2 ibid. Pg. 46-7. 
3 ibid. Pg. 170. 
4 1 am supremely indebted to Robert Farris Thompson, Meki Nzewi, 
Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, Rebecca Miller, Harris Berger, Akos 
Ostor, and my students for their invaluable contributions to my 
thinking about music, textiles, and time. Thanks are also due to 
Phillip Madanire, Howard Fredrics, and Kenji Takeuchi for their help 
with graphics. "The article "Mambo Kings to West African Textiles: A 
Synesthetic Approach to Black Atlantic Aesthetics," is a forthcoming 
in (ed.) F. Aparicio, Rhythms of Culture, St. Martin's Press.
5 Nketia, J.H. Kwabena. 1974. The Music of 
Africa. New York: W.W. Norton, Pg. 4; Nzewi, 
Meki. 1997. African Music: Theoretical Content 
and Creative Continuum, The Culture-Exponent's 
Definition. Institut fur Didaktik popularer Musik. 
Olderhausen: W.D. Lugert, Pg. 1. 
6 Austerlitz, Paul. 1986. "A History of Dominican 
Merengue Highlighting the Role of the Saxophone." 
Master's thesis, Wesleyan University; also see 
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic. Cambridge: 
Harvard University Press, Pg. 79-80. 
7 Nzewi, Meki. 1997. African Music: Theoretical 
Content and Creative Continuum, The Culture- 
Exponent's Definition. Institut fur Didaktik popularer 
Musik. Olderhausen: W.D. Lugert, Pg. 4 1 . 
8 Agawu, V. Kofi. African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe 
Perspective, Pg. 187; Jones, A. M. 1959. Studies 
in African Music, Vol. 1. London: Oxford University 
Press; Locke, David. 1987. Drum Gahu: A Systematic 
Method for an African Percussion Piece. 
Tempe, Arizona: White Cliffs Media Company; — 
—. 1990. Drum Damba: Talking Drum Lessons. 
Tempe, Arizona: White Cliffs Media Company; 
Arom, Simha. 1991. African Polyphony and 
Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology. 
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University 
Press; Wilcken, Lois. 1992. The Drums of Vodou. 
Tempe, Arizona: White Cliffs Media Company; 
Amira, John and Stephen and Cornelius. 1992. 
The Music of Santerfa: The Traditional Rhythms 
of the Bata Drums. Tempe, Arizona: White Cliffs 
Media Company; Yin, Yuen-Ming David. 1995. 
"Music and Dance of Haitian Vodou: Diversity and 
Unity in Regional Repertoires." Ph. D. dissertation, 
Wesleyan University; Anku, Willie, n.d. 
"Principles of Rhythmic Integration in African 
Drumming." New Directions: Readings in African 
Diaspora Music 1/1. Wilmington, DE: Adama 
Publications. 
9 Agawu, V. Kofi. African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe 
Perspective, Pg. 185; Chemoff, John Miller. 1979. 
African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics 
and Social Action in African Musical Idioms. Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press; Thompson, 
Robert Farris. 1984. Flash of the Spirit. New 
York: Vintage Books. 
10 Koetting, James. 1970. "Analysis and Notation 
of West African Drum Ensemble Music." Selected 
Reports 1 (3), Pg. 116-146. 
11 ibid. Pg. 179. 
"Thompson, Robert Farris. 1984. Flash of the 
Spirit. New York: Vintage Books, Pg. 207. 
13 ibid. Pg. 208. 
14 Koetting, James. "Analysis and Notation of West 
African Drum Ensemble Music." Selected Reports 
1 (3), Pg. 120. 
15 Jones, A.M. Studies in African Music. Pg. 67. 
16 Agawu, Kofi. African Rhythm. Pg. 2. 
"Nzewi, Meki. 1997. African Music. Pg. 32-33, 
34; also see Nzewi, M. 1974. "Melo-Rhythmic 
Essence and Hot Rhythm in Nigerian Folk Music." 
The Black Perspective in Music 2/1, Pg. 23-28. 
18 Austerlitz, Paul. 1986. "A History of Dominican 
<GLENDORA REVIEWxAfncan Quarterly on the ArtsxVol36No3&4> 
Merengue Highlighting the Role of the Saxophone." 
Pg. 3. 
"Chernoff, John Miller. 1979. African Rhythm and 
African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in 
African Musical Idioms. Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, Pg. 55. 
20 Nzewi, Meki. African Music, Pg. 39. 
21 ibid. Pg. 36-39. 
22 Nketia, J.H. Kwabena. 1962. "The Hocket 
Technique in African Music." Journal of the 
International Folk Music Council xiv, Pg. 44-52. 
^Chernoff, John Miller. African Rhythm and African 
Sensibility, Pg. 164. 
21 ibid. Pg. 50. 
25 Koetting, James. "Analysis and Notation of West 
African Drum Ensemble Music", Pg. 134. 
26 Stone, Ruth. 1985." In Search of Time in African 
Music." Music Theory Spectrum. 7, Pg. 139-48. 
27 Austerlitz, Paul. "Merengue: Dominican Music 
and Dominican Identity." Philadelphia: Temple 
University Press. Pg.57. 
28 Austerlitz, Paul. "A History of Dominican 
Merengue Highlighting the Role of the Saxophone", 
Pgs. 163, 165. 
29 Kubik, Gerhard. 1979. "Pattern Perception and 
Recognition in African Music." In John Blacking 
and Joann W. Kealiinohomoku (eds.) The 
Performing Arts: Music and Dance. The Hague: 
Mouton Publishers; Pgs. 224-25; 1962. T h e Phenomenon 
of Inherent Rhythms in East and Central 
African Instrumental Music." African Music 3/1, 
Pgs. 33-42. 
" C a c h a o (Israel L6pez). 1995. Master Sessions, 
volume I. Miami, FL: Warner Bros. Publications; 
1994. Master sessions, Volume I. CineSon/Epic 
CD DIDP 082439. 
31 Husserl, Edmund. 1964. The Phenomenology 
of Time-Consciousness. Edited by Martin 
Heidegger and translated by James S. Churchill. 
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Pg. 2 1 . 
32 Langer, Suzanne. 1953. Feeling and Fonv. New 
York: Scribner. 
33 de Selincourt, Basil. 1958. "Music and Duration," 
trans. S. Langer, in Langer (ed.) Reflections on 
Art. London: Oxford University Press, Pg. 287. 
"Schutz, Alfred. 1962. "Multiple Realities" in Collected 
Papers I. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, Pg. 
170; Merriam, Alan P. 1982. African Music in 
Perspective. New York: Garland Publishing, Pg. 
373. 
^Schutz, Alfred. 1976. "Fragments on the Phenomenology 
of Music," Music and Man, 2/1 2, 
Pg. 37. 
36 Kramer, Jonathan D. 1988. The Time of Music. 
New York: Schirmer, Pgs. Xiii, 5, 20. 
37 Ostor, Akos. 1993. Vessels of Time: An Essay 
on Temporal Change and Social Transformation. 
New York: Oxford University Press. 
<123> 
38 Blacking, John. 1971. T h e Value of Music in 
Human Experience." Yearbook of the Folk Music 
Council 1, Pg. 37; Merriam, Alan P. 1982. African 
Music in Perspective. New York: Garland 
Publishing; Stone, Ruth. 1982. Let The Inside Be 
Sweet: The Interpretation of Music Event Among 
the Kpelle of Liberia. Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press, Pg. 72; Stone, Ruth. 1985. "In 
Search of Time in African Music." Music Theory 
Spectrum. 7, Pgs. 39-48; Austerlitz, Paul. 1997. 
Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican 
Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 
Pg. 96. 
39 Kramer, Jonathan D. 1988. The Time of Music. 
New York: Schirmer, Pg. 387. 
40 Mbiti, John S. 1970. African Religions and Philosophy. 
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Pg. 
24, 2 1 . 
the Musical Experience New York: Gordon and 
Breach, Pgs. 50-57. 
45 Stone, Ruth. 1982. Let The Inside Be Sweet: 
The Interpretation of Music Event Among the 
Kpelle of Liberia. Bloomington: Indiana University 
Press, Pg. 72. 
" i b i d . Pg. 72 
47 Chemoff, John Miller. African Rhythm and African 
Sensibility, Pg. 115. 
" K e i l , Charles. 1966. "Motion and Feeling through 
Music." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 
24/3, Pgs. 347, quoted in Chemoff, John Miller. 
African Rhythm and African Sensibility, Pg. 113. 
49 Austerlitz, Paul. Merengue: Dominican Music 
and Dominican Identity. 
50 Nzewi, Meki. African Music. Pg. 33.
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Selected Discography 
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Tempe, Arizona: White Cliffs Media 
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W.W. Norton. 
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