Countries Archives: Ghana

Bena Ame

COUNTRY: Ghana
LANGUAGE: Ewe

In “Bena Ame” we sing a song written about an actual event in the history of Ghana when a king’s actions were so harsh that, en masse, the people fled. In this song those who got out first were said to have walked backward as they beckoned those behind them to take the correct path, or scattered seeds so everyone who had yet to escape would know the best route.

Lyrics of All Around This World version:

Because the chief was a bad guy

All the people left him

They walked on down a long road

Everyone walked backward

Or scattered seeds behind them

Bena ame mamlewo ma ga bu O

So everyone who stayed would know the way

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African Horn Trumpet

An African horn trumpet may be made from the horn of most any animal, such as elephant horns used by the Akan people of Ghana (crafted before legal bans on use of ivory) or a cow horn, as in the “side-blow” Ugandan trumpet known as the eng’ombe. A traditional African horn trumpet may appear more in ceremonial or ritual music than in popular music, though popular African musicians like highlife pioneer E.T. Mensah and the powerful Afro-beat musician Fela Kuti worked wonders in their music with saxophones, trumpets and trombones.

<a href="http://allaroundthisworld.bandcamp.com/album/all-around-this-world-africa-vol-1-north-and-east-pre-order">All Around This World: Africa Vol. 1 (North and East) (pre-order) by All Around This World</a>

Atenteben

An atenteben is a Ghanaian bamboo flute. Mainly associated with the Akan ethnic group, the atenteben has six holds on the top, one on the bottom and a little piece of wood (“fipple”) at one end for the musician to blow so it can make sound.

<a href="http://allaroundthisworld.bandcamp.com/album/all-around-this-world-africa-vol-2-west-central-and-south-pre-order">All Around This World: Africa Vol. 2 (West, Central and South) (pre-order) by All Around This World</a>

Kpanlogo

“Kpanlogo” is a term that could refer to either a Ghanaian form of music popularized by the Ga ethnic group, the drums they play while making that music, or the rhythms kpanlogo musicians play on the kpanlogo drums while performing kpanlogo. One of the main “bell patterns” in kplanlogo music is the same as the “son clave,” a rhythm that is a key foundation of Afro-Cuban genres like salsa and son.

<a href="http://allaroundthisworld.bandcamp.com/album/all-around-this-world-africa-north-and-east-pre-order">All Around This World: Africa (North and East — pre-order) by All Around This World</a>

Gankogui bells

Hand-forged from thick iron and struck with a wooden stick, GANKOGUI BELLS, also known by other names like the Agogo, play the “key rhythm” in West African drum ensembles. The key rhythm is a specific pattern that doesn’t change throughout the piece, providing a reference point for the other instruments. As African-Music-Sarfari.com’s introduction to gankogui bells notes, “The bell does not just mark the main beat of the rhythm. It’s a bit more complicated than that..While the bell repeats a 4/4 pattern three times, the drums may repeat a 3/4 rhythm four times. So, instead of a common beat, we should rather call it a relation.”

Traditional GANKOGUI BELLS are actually two different bells attached to one another, with a smaller bell tuned approximately one octave higher than the larger. The bell player can create a number of different tones. According to Virtual Instrument Museum, “there are three syllables referring to the different strokes applied to the gankogui: tin (rebounding shot on the large bell), go (rebounding shot on the small bell), and ka (shot pressly firmly into the small bell).” (More: Hear a simple gankogui bell pattern on its own | Listen to the gankogui bells keeping the key rhythm in a Ewe drum ensemble.)

Gyil

The gyil (pronounced JEE-lee) is a West African xylophone made of fourteen wooden slats attached to a frame above resonating calabash gourds. It is a primary instrument of the Lobi and Dagara people of Burkina Faso, Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

Let MandaraMusic.com teach us about the gyil.

Balafon

The balafon is a West African xylophone that an artisan carefully crafts from particular species of dried wood, 18-21 bars of which are attached to a frame above specific resonating gourds, and strike with special gum-rubber mallets. There are two kinds of balafons — fixed key, in which the bars are attached to a frame above buzzing, resonating gourds, and free-key, in which the bars rest directly on a padded surface.

Ghana for Kids – Kpanlogo

The KPANLOGO is a recreational dance of the Ga people which they created in the late ’50s/early ’60s in part to celebrate Ghana’s independence from the British. The movements are bold and radiate joy. The term “kpanlogo” can also refer to a type of drum, as well to a style of music that has had substantial influence in the West.

Dancing the kpanlogo helps us relate to the optimism Ghana and other African nations felt as they shook colonial powers in the 1950s through the 1970s. We can also follow the kpanlogo bell pattern across the Atlantic, creating a rhythmic “paper trail” to connect West Africa with the Americas.

PLEASE NOTE: The lesson and embedded video are NOT “How to dance the kpanlogo” tutorials. The goal of this lesson is to provide the tools for you to treat your very youngest students to their first introduction to the kpanlogo and to inspire you to get up and dance together. (Your dance moves can’t be any worse than mine!) Ideally the lesson will be the first step on your and your students’ road to exploration of authentic kpanlogo rhythms and dance.

Ghana–Music

Ghana is best known in the international music community as the historical home of highlife, the rollicking, guitar-based dance music that provides the literal soundtrack of much of West Africa’s public space.

Highlife is rollicking dance music that arose in the coastal towns of Ghana in the 1920s and fused, as Alisdair.com’s brief introduction to highlife explains it, “indigenous dance rhythms and melodies with Western sounds began in the coastal towns of Ghana, including regimental brass bands, sea shanties, hymns; European foxtrots and Caribbean kaiso, with African rhythms of Liberia (dagomba), Sierra Leone (ashiko and goombe) and Fante (osibisaba). In the 1940s Ghanaian band leader E.T. Mensah and his musical contemporaries, reacting to the proliferation of foreign genres like the waltz and rumba in the big band music popular with whites who lived in Ghana, consciously sought out syncopated African rhythms (now known as Highlife rhythms) to underlie their own compositions. In the ’50s Mensah and his Tempos band traveled about West Africa spreading highlife to nations like Nigeria, which embraced it wholeheartedly and soon came to rival Ghana as the most prominent home of the genre. Today’s highlife blares from what seems like every car stereo in the region, becoming an indelible part of the natural environment, almost as ubiquitous as air.

More info:

More about Mensah at RetroAfrica.com | Watch this tribute to Mensah on YouTube | See kids pretend to be George Darko and his band

Ghana–Language

Most Ghanaians are part of one of six ethnic groups and speak both English, the common colonial tongue, and the language of their group: the Akan (Ashanti and Fanti), the Ewe, the Ga-Adangbe, the Mole-Dagbani, the Guan, and the Gurma.

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