Browsing by Author "Sanga, Imani"
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Item Composition Processes in Popular Church Music in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania(Taylor & Francis Group, 2006-11-24) Sanga, ImaniPopular church music is one of the newer musical genres in Tanzania. It is characterized by incorporating improvisation, by the use of electric guitars, keyboards and drum machines, and by the body movements which accompany its performance. This paper shows that composition processes in this style are collaborative and take place in multiple stages.Item The Figuring Of Music Cultures In Literary And Visual Arts Of Tanzania: Preliminaries And Methodological Issues1(2012) Sanga, ImaniUsually when we read poems or novels and when we look at paintings or sculptures we find ourselves transported away from our ―ordinary world‖ into ―imaginary worlds‖ that these works of art create. The movement into these imaginary worlds becomes possible when we immerse ourselves into the works of art in question. In some of these imaginary worlds, we encounter people sing, play music instruments and dance to music. Some other times we also encounter people talk about music and their musical experiences. On my part, every time I encounter such musical moments, as it is the case when I am in my ordinary world, I pay attention and enjoy the musical experience. Most often these musical experiences call for subsequent reflections. As a student of the music cultures of Tanzania, I have witnessed in recent years the increasingly growing number of scholarly works concerning music cultures of Tanzania. However, none of the studies I know focus on the imaginary music cultures which I often encounter in the works of art. Since imaginary musical cultures are part of everyday human experiences, these imaginary music cultures need our scholarly attention for a more comprehensive understanding of music cultures in Tanzania, an attention that the present study pays. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the imaginary music cultures created in and through literary and visual works of art by Tanzanian artists, and to examine how music or some of its elements such as music styles, music instruments or voice are used in the context of the imaginary music cultures within selected works of art as figures of social identities and/or relations.Item Gender in Church Music: Dynamics of Gendered Space in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania(Wiley, 2007-07-04) Sanga, ImaniThis article deals with the dynamics of gendered space in Muziki wa Injili (lit. Gospel Music) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Muziki wa Injili is characterized by employing body movements, by incorporating improvisation, and by featuring the use of electric guitars and keyboards all of which are uncommon in the mainstream church music traditions, particularly in the art church choir music and church hymns. In addition, unlike art choir music, Muziki wa Injili borrows musical elements from other popular music genres such as rumba, soukous, zouk, reggae, rap, taarab, and salsa (charanga), to be brief. The elements borrowed include dancing styles, rhythmic, and/or melodic configurations, playing techniques, ornamentation, and singing styles, among others. Sometimes it is performed by church choirs. At other times it is performed by individual musicians who record and sell their cassettes privately. Thus the use of the concept Muziki wa Injili is broader than that of Muziki wa Kwaya (lit. Choir Music) in that it includes not only the music performed by church choirs, as is the case with Muziki wa Kwaya, but also church music performed by individual musicians. Apart from being performed in churches during services, Muziki wa Injili is also performed during concerts of Muziki wa Injili (which take place almost every weekend in different concert halls in Dar es Salaam) and during indoor and outdoor evangelical meetings (Barz 1997, 2003). Because of the recent developments in recording, the advent of cheap cassette reproduction technology, and the growing broadcasting opportunities in television and radio stations, some of which are owned by church organizations, Muziki wa Injili has grown rapidly in popularity and use in the last two decades (Barz 1997, 2003; Sanga 2001, 2006). As I illustrate in an ethnographic account below, the prominence of women in this music has also increased significantly during this time.Item Kumpolo: Aesthetic Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation of Bird Sounds in Tanzania(Taylor & Francis Group, 2006-08-19) Sanga, ImaniThis article deals with the aesthetics of the sounds of ring-necked doves and African ground hornbills among the Wawanji people of the Iringa region in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The Wawanji composed tunes by imitating the sounds of these birds. The essay argues that an aesthetic value was culturally attributed to the natural sounds of the birds, in so far as the lyrics set to these tunes and tales about the birds or their sounds concerned human experiences such as fear, work, joy, and hope.Item Lauluja Tansaniasta [Songs from Tanzania](1996) Sanga, ImaniItem The Limits and Ambivalences of Postcolonial Consciousness in Mbunga’s Church Law and Bantu Music(2013) Sanga, ImaniThis article focuses on a book entitled Church Law and Bantu Music: Ecclesiastical Documents and Law on Sacred Music as Applied to Bantu Music by a Tanzanian Roman Catholic priest, the late Stephen Mbunga. In this book, Mbunga strongly defends the use of African music in Roman Catholic Church services in Africa. He interprets Catholic laws and various directives given by top officials in the church and argues that the use of African music in that church is consistent with and can be done in accordance with these laws and directives concerning church music. He also proposes practical ways through which musicians can undertake the task of composing African music that are appropriate for church services. This article identifies and discusses various deadlocks in Mbunga's project and argues that Church Law and Bantu Music, like many other African nationalistic projects, is characterized by ambivalences of the postcolonial consciousness and is shaped largely by the postcolonial condition of its time.Item Music and Nationalism in Tanzania: Dynamics of National Space in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam(University of Illinois Press, 2008) Sanga, ImaniNationalistic projects normally influence the content, form, mance practice of music. Similarly, music as a "system of cultural representation" (following Hall 1992) participates in the construction of nationalism and national identities and in the construction of "traditions" through which national identities are sustained (Askew 2002; Stokes 1994; Wade 2000; Turino 2000; Chitando 2002). Listening to Muziki wa Injili (Gospel Music) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, one encounters a number of songs that are concerned with nationalism in various ways. In this article, I examine how nationalism is constructed with Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam. Muziki wa Injili is a church music genre in Tanzania characterized by employing body movements, incorporating improvisation, and featur ing the use of electric guitars and keyboards. The music is performed in various popular music styles such as rumba, soukous, reggae, zouk, R&B, rap, salsa {charanga), and taarab, among others. Most of these features are uncommon in the mainstream or church art music that is normally performed either unaccompanied or accompanied by organ or electric keyboard. In addition, unlike church art music that is normally notated in either staff or solfa notation, Muziki wa Injili is largely composed, transmitted, and preserved orally and aurally (with a few exceptions). The music is performed not only in churches during services but also in evangelical meetings and in the increasingly common concerts of Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam (Barz 1997, 2003; Sanga 2006a, 2006b, 2007). Apart from being performed by church choirs, Muziki wa Injili is also performed by individual musicians who record and sell their cassettes privately. That is to say, the use of the concept Muziki wa Injili is broader than that of Muziki wa Kwaya (Choir Music), a genre performed most typically by church choirs. Additionally, Muziki wa Injili is increasingly being broadcast in various television and radio stations in Tanzania, some of which are owned by church organizations. This article is informed by ethnographic research in Dar es Salaam in 2004 and 2005. During the research, I conducted interviews with mu sicians of Muziki wa Injili from Lutheran, African Inland Church (AIC), Anglican, and Tanzania Assemblies of God (TAG) churches, and I joined the Kwaya ya Uinjilisti Sayuni (Sayuni Evangelical Choir) at Kinondoni Lutheran Church as a participant-observer. I rehearsed and performed with the choir as a singer, guitarist, and keyboardist. I also collected a number of recorded songs, some of which are analyzed in this article. In what follows, I begin by explicating a philosophical approach that I use to examine the construction of nationalism in Muziki wa Injili. Then I discuss various ways through which nationalism in Tanzania is constructed and represented in this music.Item Music and the Regulatory Regimes of Gender and Sexuality in Tanzania(2011-07-18) Sanga, ImaniThis article examines the involvement of music in shaping people's gendered behavior in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Using Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity and the associated concepts of gender normalization and regulatory regimes of gender, the article analyzes how selected songs play a role in regulating individuals' gendered behavior and disciplining individuals who disrupt societal gender norms. It argues that composers of these songs employ accumulated gender norms from their societies. It also illustrates how the rhetoric and practice of building and maintaining national culture participate in regulating gendered and sexual aspects of musical performance in contemporary Tanzania.Item Mzungu Kichaa and the Figuring of Identity in "Bongo Fleva" Music in Tanzania(2011-06) Sanga, ImaniThis article draws from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's notion of refrain and Louise Meintjes' concept of music figure and examines various ways a Danish-born Bongo Fleva musi- cian in Tanzania, Mzungu Kichaa deploys music figures to con- struct African and Tanzanian identities. It also examines how he uses these figures to negotiate his position in relation to these identities. To illustrate the perform- ative effects of music figures on people's identities the article examines how the deployment of musical figures serves a double function: to claim one's Tanza- nian or African identity and to announce one's difference with other identities (e.g. European or English identities) at least with regard to musical taste. As a result, Mzungu Kichaa's attempts to enter into the mainstream UK's and Danish music industry were not successful since the music figures he used, the figures that justified his identity as a Tanza- nian or African, occupied margi- nal spaces in European contexts.Item Orchestral Arrangement of the National Anthem of Tanzania(2010) Sanga, ImaniOrchestral Arrangement of the National Anthem of Tanzania is a musical composition for piano by IMANI SANGA as Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam. He received his PhD in Music from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is the author of Sounds of Muziki wa Injili: Temporal and Spatial Aesthetics of Contemporary Church Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2010). His articles on the music of Tanzania have appeared in the following international peer reviewed journals: Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of African Cultural Studies, African Music, Folklore, African Studies Review, Popular Music and Society, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and Yearbook for Traditional Music.Item Postcolonial archival fever and the musical archiving of African identity in selected paintings by Elias Jengo(Taylor & Francis Group, 2014-01-10) Sanga, ImaniThis article examines the way music is figured in selected paintings by Tanzania painter Elias Jengo. It also identifies and discusses musical figures in these paintings that are used to archive African or Tanzanian identity. Through these paintings Jengo participates in constructing and enacting African/Tanzanian identity by invoking and depositing Tanzanian cultural heritage. The article argues that the archiving of Africanness in most postcolonial cultural productions is an expression of a fever that torments African postcolonial souls, a fever caused by a fear of the possibility of cultural loss. The article also discusses Jengo's influence on his students and other young artists in Tanzania as an act of archiving. It argues that the future of Jengo's work lies not only in his influence on these young artists but also in his own ability and readiness to take plastic forms, as well as his students' eagerness to archive him in plastic forms.Item Postcolonial Cosmopolitan Music in Dar es Salaam: Dr. Remmy Ongala and the Traveling Sounds(Cambridge University Press, 2010-12) Sanga, ImaniThis article concerns Dr. Remmy Ongala, a Congolese-Tanzanian musician, and the making of postcolonial cosmopolitan music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It argues that Dr. Remmy's music is shaped by the postcolonial consciousness and conditions of contemporary Tanzania. It also shows Dr. Remmy's cosmopolitan citizenship in his songs that address political and social issues. Focusing on his involvement in worldbeat festivals, it argues that he, like other musicians, enters into the worldbeat system not as a fully autonomous individual but as a constituted postcolonial subject, compelled to shape his music in accordance with the demands of the worldbeat system.Item The practice and politics of hybrid soundscapes in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania(Taylor & Francis Group, 2010-11-15) Sanga, ImaniThis article examines the practice and politics of music hybridization in Muziki wa Injili (Gospel Music) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It shows that music hybridization in Muziki wa Injili takes place when musical sounds from one music culture travel through a number of cultural frontiers including temporal, spatial and genre-defined frontiers and enter into another music culture. In this process the travelling sounds are transformed as they encounter other sounds commonly used in the new music culture. The article argues that it is through these transformations or reconfigurations that the travelling sounds from other cultures are able to enter into the culture of Muziki wa Injili. By focussing on the politics of music hybridity, the article shows that music hybrids subvert the nativistic efforts to do away with ‘foreign music’ – which includes Western, Congolese and South African music.Item Sounds of Muziki wa Injili: Temporal and Spatial Aesthetics of Contemporary Church Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania(Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP), 2010) Sanga, ImaniItem Teaching-learning Processes in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam(International Library of Africa Music, 2009) Sanga, ImaniThis article is concerned with teaching-learning processes in Muziki wa Injili (Gospel Music) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It discusses two methods of teaching and learning that are commonly used in Muziki wa Injili, namely, imitation and peer-directed learning. The teaching-learning processes involving members of groups of Muziki wa Injili, and children who are not members of these groups, are informal in that they do not take place in a formally organized music classroom. Informal methods such as those found in most traditional music cultures in Tanzania and in many other oral music cultures are used. I argue that the adoption of methods from traditional music contexts into this contemporary music geme is made possible (and even necessary) by the fact that Muziki wa Injili, like many other popular music genres, is an oral music culture. This transference is also possible because some members of groups of Muziki wa Injili acquired their music skills in traditional music contexts where aural/oral teaching and learning by imitation is the norm. The title of this article intentionally evokes Lucy Green's book, How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education (2002). In it Green discusses a number of teaching and learning methods used by popular musicians in the UK, including peer-directed learning and imitation (also used in Muziki wa Injili) and advocates the adoption of these methods in formal music schools.Item Theme 1 for Brass(2010) Sanga, ImaniTheme 1 for Brass is a musical composition for piano by IMANI SANGA as Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam. He received his PhD in Music from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is the author of Sounds of Muziki wa Injili: Temporal and Spatial Aesthetics of Contemporary Church Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2010). His articles on the music of Tanzania have appeared in the following international peer reviewed journals: Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of African Cultural Studies, African Music, Folklore, African Studies Review, Popular Music and Society, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and Yearbook for Traditional Music.Item A Wish - A Composition for Piano(2010) Sanga, ImaniA Wish - A Composition for Piano is a musical composition for piano by IMANI SANGA as Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam. He received his PhD in Music from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is the author of Sounds of Muziki wa Injili: Temporal and Spatial Aesthetics of Contemporary Church Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2010). His articles on the music of Tanzania have appeared in the following international peer reviewed journals: Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of African Cultural Studies, African Music, Folklore, African Studies Review, Popular Music and Society, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and Yearbook for Traditional Music.