Arts and Africa
BBC COPYRIGHT CONTROL ARTS AND AFRICA First B1cast 1.1.84
523G
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Hello and welcome to Arts and Africa. This is Alex Tetteh-Lartey
and today I'm starting the programme with some questions - Is what you
say the same thing as how you say it? Or is there any difference?
Is it possible to make a distinction between the medium and the message?
For example, how is a carving affected by the wood used? And to what
extent is a painting determined by the paint used? What bearing does the.
instrument have on the nature of the tune?
Today in Arts and Africa we'll be hearing from two men, each with
strong views on the medium he uses to get his message across. For Nadir
Tharani the medium is mud.
NADIR THARANI
Mud is actually one of the oldest building materials besides sticks
and grass and stone. Mud has been around since civilization or human
beings began.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
The voice of Tanzanian architect Nadir Tharani. Mud is popular as
a building mediUiil in many parts of Africa, because it's cheap and
traditional. But in modern architecture itts been sadly neglected -
modern architects are trained to use modern materials; bricks and concrete,
less beautifuJ. in Nadir Tharani's opinion, more expensive. Speaking
here to Deborah Pugh he explains how the beauty of mud, the smooth shapes
it creates, recommends it as a medium for building.
NADIR THARANI
Well anyone who likes curves is bound to like mud since it's such
a sensuous material; its sensuality can only be described if one looks
at it, or through photographs; it is very difficult to explain it in
words. One gets this gradation of light and shade and pools of darkness
and pools of light. It can also be used, it has been used, to form things
like seating; in fact, perhaps one doesnrt need any other furniture.
You can have a house where everything is made out of mud .
•
(2)
DEBORAH PUGH
When people build their houses, do they ever think about the colour
of the· house that 1s going to be, or do they paint them?
NADIR THARANI
In Tanzania itself they don't really colour the mud, ·neither do
they paint the mud. But in other parts of Africa, for example in
northern Nigeria or in Sudan or in South Africa, they do paint the mud
various colours out of vegetable dyes. Some do use different types of
mud, but because it can be painted there is no real need to find different
colours of the soil.
DEBORAH PUGH
But in your opinion is enough being done to ensure that the
traditional forms of architecture using mud are continuing in use in
Tanzania?
NADIR THARANI
Simply the answer is no. But in a way it 1s a very difficult
question, because on one hand you have the people who actually use the
mud houses and they prefer permanence, that is their priority, so they
prefer corrugated sheet made out of steel or alim.inium. The government
agertcies come.along also with plans 'Whieh are usually rectangular plans
as model houses, and therefore the peasants usually follow them. And
one can debate whether its someone's inate sensuality which has to be
expressed or someone's aethestic taste. I mean, we find curves sensuous
but this is no necessarily so. Some peoples, or some cultures, or some
art periods even in western Europe, have found that sharp edges or sharp
angles can be made to feel sensuous by the way they are juxtaposed.
DEBORAH PUGH
Why is it, though, that government architects haven't responded to
the traditions in Tanzania of c±rcular housing and actually planned new
housing estates in the urban centres with these traditional forms in
mind?
NADIR THARANI
Basically because they are bad architects. There are very few
Tanzanian architects and a lot of the models, for example, models of
hospitals, schools, community centres, or houses, have been designed
by foreigners. There was aid, especially Swedish aid available, so you 1d
have architects ·coming over from Sweden, and there was Polish aid, there
was Bulgarian aid, and their designs were copied into little hand-books,
and field workers, Tanzanian technicians are sent out putting up
buildings to these designs all over Tanzania. So basically it 1s one
model whicl+ is spreading out from the capital, which som·e guy must have
done in one morning, and it 1s changing the whole appearance of Tanzania
in the rural countryside.
(3)
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
And now to our next guest - he's a musicologist, a composer and
a musician.
MUSIC - NANA DANSO
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
The cool sounds of Nana Danso Abiang recorded there in Germany.
Last week he came to the Arts and Africa studio to talk to me about his
work. Well Nana Danso in the piece we've just heard you have used the
piano, which is a western instrument and its· playing something that has
a very Ghanaian, very African feel to it. Why did you mix the medium
of the piano with classical, what we would call classical Ghanaian music.
NANA DANSO
Well on the piano I'm using I in fact adapted the Dagarti (phon)
style of playing the xylophone to the piano, so that the piano is playing
within the pentatonic scale.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
What does that mean, I don't understand it?
NANA DANSO
What it means is that a pentatonic scale is a scale within. which
there are five notes to the octave and this is a type of scale that is
used in the northern part of Ghana.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Right, now why did you choose to use'the piano in this sense?
NANA DANSO
Well I use the piano because I'm in Europe and unfortunately I'm
unable to come along with some of the musicians who usually play the
xylophone with me, and so this led me to the quest of new solutions
vis-a-vis how to adapt African idiomatic style to western instruments.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
There were other instruments in that song as well. What were they?
NANA DANSO
-Yes, those other instruments, in fact, I wrote this music for a
quintet, that is an Atentabeng (phon) which is a traditional flute Iim
using, a Western transverse flute, a piano and a tabla, which is an
Indian percussion instrument. I also have a percussionist who played
assorted rattles mostly and produced effects on very little instruments
like rattles, bells, etc.
(4)
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Well now, of course, you have had western training in all its
various forms. Has that helped you to develop this African classical
style?
NANO DANSO
· Well of course it has because, first of all, I've been trained to
write, to understand the basics of music and I 1ve been trained to be able
to analyse music.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Have you tried to use these African instruments to play other kinds
of music?
NANA DANSO
Yes I have although some of our instruments are limited. When the
Atentabeng (phon~ was introduced in 1982 as :·a chromatic instrument, I
tried to play jazz items. One of the jazz items that I played was
"Take Five11 by Da"?'e Brubeck.
MUSIC - TAKE FIVE
.ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Nana, you are using another African instrument there, I guess?
NANA DANSO
Yes I used rattles, assorted percussion, because while one player
was playing the Tabla, there was another percussionist who was playing
all sorts of percussion, rattles, gongs, bells etc.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
I think it was beautiful, it was so soothing.
NANA DANSO
It makes the music different from what Brubeck recorded.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Yes, lovely. Now I understand that you are thinking of assembling
a pan-African orchestra to play African music, pan-African music?
NANA DANSO
Yes.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
With different instruments?
( 5)
NANA DANSO
Yes, it was after a study I conducted you know, to give birth to
the first black orchestra composed of one hundred and eight musicians,
divided into four sections. We have, for example, the Atentabeng (phon)
in C, we have the Atentabeng in B flat, we have.the Odur:-uja (phon) in F,
~e have the Oduruja in B flat, which in fact form a verJ interesting mix.
'We also have melodic instruments like the Dagarti xylophone, we have
the flute, we have so many melodic instruments.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Are you interested just in the melodic and harmony aspect of the
orchestra? Is that why you've assembled so many instruments?
NANO DANSO
That plays a very important role. You see the westerners have
always considered African music to be purely percussive music, which ls,
in fact, not true; there are·several areas in Africa where melody is
very important, and I blend the two. Percussion is very important in
my music.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Now isn't the number of so many instruments, one hundred and eight,
going to make even more complicated the rhythm section of African music
which is already a very very complicated, intricate thing?
NANA DANSO
Well if the orchestra is composed of one hundred and eight people
it doesn't mean that each individual is playing a different thing. You
can have four people playing one thing, you can have two people playing
another pattern, you can have six people playing something else and so
it doesn't make it complicated.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Well Nana how far have you gone beyond the merely paper feasibility
study?
NANA DANSO
Well I have, in fact, been playing with a traditional ensemble of
about twenty five pieces, and we've been trying to do something. It1s
been working quite well and I hope that in the near future this small
ensemble that I've put together will inspire other people to get into
the feel ...... .
(6)
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
To form the pan-African orchestra?
NANA DANSO
Exactly.
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
I hope so to. We are now going to end with some more of your
music. What is it going to be?
NANA DANSO
Well the next item is called 11Hexatonic Organisation".
MUSIC - HEXATONIC ORGANISATION
ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
Nana Danso once again thank you very much indeed.
NANA DANSO
I also thank you very much .
.ALEX TETTEH-LARTEY
.J
And now this is Alex Tetteh-Lartey saying a Happy New Year to all
our listeners. Join me again next week for another edition of Arts
and Africa.