Cross-Cultural Music Composition

Art musicians who create works that use folk songs as compositional material fail to capture inherent cultural nuances and the musical idiom of the concerned songs often because of bias from Western compositional techniques. Their style and treatment may affect the traditional character of the music that is composed in terms of rhythm, melody, text, texture, harmony, intervals, form and its idiomatic expression. The practice compromises the traditional idioms such as that of the Samia; and without conscious focus to appropriate referencing and validating traditional music, the situation can degenerate further. This also threatens the development of styles of music that can be identified as African or regional. The study therefore chose to utilize traditional music characteristics to specifically address the traditional Samia musical idiom in a composition using traditional Samia musical style as a stylistic and artistic compositional framework for contemporary composers. The study adopted a mode of creativity / dynamic approach through the synthesis of traditional Samia marriage music and Western compositional techniques and approaches.

Autorentext

Dr. Musungu earned his PhD from the University of South Africa- Pretoria. He is an accomplished composer fusing traditional Kenyan and Western techniques of composition; a choral performer and teacher of music. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Music and Performing Arts of The Kenya Polytechnic University College Nairobi, Kenya.