Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

IV. Modern developments

Western music continues to have an influence on Uganda's music. From the 1950s ‘Sunday’ composers, untrained in Western composition, turned mainly to choral music. The first commissioned composition was probably Mbabi-Katana's Te Deum for the ceremony at the High Court in Kampala on the occasion of Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. Kyagambiddwa's Uganda Martyrs African Oratorio (1964) was recorded and widely performed in Europe. His technique is characterized by detailed vocal scoring, which closely follows the profile of the text in the traditional manner, with written instructions naming the particular dance style in which drummers might improvise an accompaniment for the chorus in each movement. Like Kyagambiddwa (1928–78), the Munyankore composer Benedicto Mubangizi (1926–95) frequently composed in his own vernacular, closely emulating at times the traditional singing style of his people and occasionally using traditional rhythmic accompaniments. His output was large and included six masses and 265 anthems and hymns. His hymnbook compilation Mweshongorere Mukama (Let us Praise the Lord) contained many of his own compositions and has become popular in Catholic churches throughout the diocese of Western Uganda. Within the Protestant Church of Uganda composers have tended to create vernacular compositions with SATB homophony similar to English models (Gray, 1995).

The late Ahmed Oduka, director of the Uganda Police Band, created a repertory with tunes based on traditional melodic patterns and wrote out the score for band instruments as he had been taught at the Royal Military School of Music, London (Kneller Hall). Like Kyagambiddwa, he added drummers on ad hoc local drums, without scoring their parts.

In Kampala, the capital, and in the few other provincial towns, nightclubs, bars and local radio stations disseminate imported musical entertainment and the somewhat Westernized popular music of local groups. While Congolese and Swahili songs and styles based on West African and Latin American genres are popular, groups such as Jimmy Katumba with the Ebonies and the Afrigos Band (both popular during the 1980s and early 1990s) also perform in local vernacular languages, and in some cases the influence of Western church homophony is clearly evident. One of the most popular genres of the mid-1990s was kadongo kamu, originally inspired by American country music; it involved one singer with a steel-string guitar performing very much in the tradition of the itinerant rural musician. Humorous, topical and subversive commentary (especially during the period of army rule) were important characteristics in these acts. While the guitar accompaniments were rudimentary, using simple triadic Western harmonies, indigenous rhythms such as the baakisimba dance pattern were also integrated. Later, kadongo kamu moved into popular theatres and was enlarged to accommodate other instrumentalists (e.g. electric and bass guitars) and dancers, but it lost none of its political and social content.

Popular theatre involving much song and dance burgeoned through the 1990s, drawing on both the expertise of graduates from Makerere University's School of Music, Dance and Drama and the musical skills of popular musicians. Topical new songs and Western ‘hits’ are juxtaposed with modernized action songs, traditional dances, court music and ritual to build plots advanced mainly by improvised dialogue. Numerous theatre venues have appeared in Kampala and its suburbs, where semi-professional companies often play to packed houses. Some of the urban Muslim population have developed an interest in taarab music from the Swahili coast and several taarab bands were formed during the 1990s, modelling their playing on imported recordings.

During the period of strife, Western religion was perceived by many rural Ugandans to have failed them, and this perception, combined with a breakdown in the national health infrastructure, corresponded to a rise in importance of traditional healers who combine their medicinal work with ancestor worship and spirit appeasement through the use of mediums and various types of trance. Music and dance are vital ingredients in these activities. Moreover, since traditional culture and traditional belief go hand in hand, the leaders of such cult groups (e.g. the Cwezi ancestor cult in Bunyoro and the corresponding Swezi cult in Busoga) regard themselves as guardians of traditional culture and extend patronage to local amateur groups specializing in traditional songs and dances. The cults are well-organized on a national basis; the Ugandan Traditional Healers and Cultural Association serves as a central organization.

An official policy aimed at recognizing the special potential of women in national development has led to the formation of innumerable women's clubs and self-help groups throughout rural Uganda. Singing and dancing often occupy a central place in their activities and in their songs (whether traditional or newly composed), which disseminate the latest ideas on good husbandry, hygiene, child care and other matters considered essential to development.

The ministries responsible for culture, education and agriculture view performance of traditional music and dance as a means of furthering their work. Accordingly, they organize regular district and national music festivals. While new songs are produced in abundance, the performance of traditional repertories clearly illustrates the process of a transference of function. Music and dance that formerly played an essential role in work, ritual, ceremonial and social events in village life are increasingly performed as ‘consati’ (concert programmes) or as theatre. The ‘theatre’ may often be no more than the compound of a homestead or a temporary open space in front of a new dispensary, village school or local government offices.

The numerous rural amateur troupes throughout the regions rehearse programmes that feature not only their local traditional instrumental styles and dances but occasionally also stereotypes of popular dances and musical genres from other regions of Uganda. Some of these groups model their programmes on those of the former National Ensemble (Heatbeat of Africa), which, though based at the National Theatre in Kampala during the 1960s and 70s, used a large cast of performers drawn from various regions in order to create ethnically varied and attractive programmes and to express the concept of a harmonious multi-ethnic society. These efforts, combined with the widespread encouragement of traditional instrument playing in schools, lead sometimes to a varied instrumentarium where harps, zithers, panpipes and xylophones are added to what were once smaller ensembles.

Since around 1970 the adungu harps of the Alur have also been adopted as ensemble instruments in many areas of Uganda. They are made in three or four different sizes, tuned heptatonically, and are used frequently like guitars to produce simple triadic harmonies for accompanying traditional and modern songs and hymns. Everisto Muyinda (d 1992) was the chief inspiration for the concept of mixed ensembles; he became a key figure in the musical life of the country during his varied career as a palace musician, a research assistant in a government-sponsored survey of music in Uganda, a chief musician in the widely travelled National Ensemble (where he was credited with inventing the ‘Kiganda orchestra’), a demonstrator in the music gallery of the Uganda Museum and an instructor in traditional music at several large secondary schools. His younger colleague, Albert Ssempeke, like Muyinda a singer and performer of many instruments, also obtained initial training from the kabaka's musicians and has taken up Muyinda's mantle in his efforts to promote traditional Ganda music. Both men have been teachers and mentors of many Westerners who have studied music in Uganda.

Uganda

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Kagwa: Ekitabo kye bika bya Buganda [The book of the clans of Buganda] (n.p., 1908)

J. Roscoe: The Baganda: An Account of their Native Customs and Beliefs (London, 1911, 2/1995)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘An Equal-Stepped Tuning in a Ganda Harp’, Nature, clxv (1950), 40–41

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Musicology in Uganda’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, lxxxiii (1953), 50–57

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘The Sound Instruments’, in M. Trowell and K.P. Wachsmann: Tribal Crafts of Uganda (London, 1953)

J. Kyagambiddwa: African Music from the Source of the Nile (New York, 1955)

M.B. Nsimbi: Amannya amaganda n'ennono zaago [Ganda names and their meanings] (Kampala, 1956)

K.P. Wachsmann: Folk Musicians in Uganda, Uganda Museum Occasional Paper, ii (Kampala, 1956)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘A Study of Norms in the Tribal Music of Uganda’, EthM Newsletter, xi (1957), 9–16

J. Kyagambiddwa: Uganda Martyrs African Oratorio (Rome, 1964

G. Kubik: ‘Xylophone Playing in Southern Uganda’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xciv (1964), 138–59

H.F. Morris: The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole (Oxford, 1964)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Human Migration and African Harps’, JIFMC, xvi (1964), 84–91

G. Jackson, J.S. Gartlan and M. Posnansky: ‘Rock Gongs and Associated Rock Paintings on Lolui Island, Lake Victoria, Uganda: a Preliminary Note’, Man, lxv (1965), 38–40

H.F. Morris: ‘The Praise Poems of Bahima Women’, African Language Studies, vi (1965), 52–66

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Some Speculations Concerning a Drum Chime in Buganda’, Man, lxv (1965), 1–8

P.R. Cooke: ‘Ganda Xylophone Music: Another Approach’, AfM, iv/4 (1966–70), 62–80

G. Kubik: ‘Composition Techniques in Kiganda Xylophone Music’, AfM, iv/3 (1966–70), 22–39; see also iv/4 (1966–70), 137–45; v/2 (1972), 114

P. van Thiel: ‘The Music of Ankole’, AfM, iv/1 (1966–7), 6–18

A. Sharman and L. Anderson: ‘Drums in Padhola’, Uganda Journal, xxxi (1967), 191–9

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Pen-Equidistance and Accurate Pitch: a Problem from the Source of the Nile’, Festschrift für Walter Wiora, ed. L. Finscher and C.-H. Mahling (Kassel, 1967), 583–92

L. Anderson: The Miko Modal System of Kiganda Xylophone Music (diss., UCLA, 1968)

P. van Thiel: ‘An Attempt to a Kinyankore Classification of Musical Instruments’, Review of Ethnology, xiii (1969), 1–5

P.R. Cooke: The Ganda ndere (thesis, U. of Wales, Cardiff, 1970)

S. Mbabi-Katana: ‘Similarities of Musical Phenomena over a Large Part of the African Continent as Evidenced by the Irambi and Empango Side-Blown Trumpet Styles and Drum Rhythms’, African Urban Studies, v/4 (1970), 25–41

P.R. Cooke: ‘“Ludaya”: a Transverse Flute from Eastern Uganda’, YIFMC, iii (1971), 79–90

K.A. Gourlay: ‘The Making of Karimojong Cattle Songs’, Mila, ii/1 (1971), 34–48

P. van Thiel: Volksmuziek uit Ankole, West-Uganda (Tervooren, 1971) [in Dutch, Eng., Fr. and Ger.] [with disc]

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Musical Instruments in Kiganda Tradition and their Place in the East African Scene’, Essays on Music and History in Africa, ed. K.P. Wachsmann (Evanston, IL, 1971), 93–134

K.A. Gourlay: ‘The Practice of Cueing among the Karimojong of North-east Uganda’, EthM, xvi (1972), 240–47

P. van Thiel: ‘Some Preliminary Notes on the Music of the Cwezi Cult in Ankole’, AfM, v/3 (1973–4), 55–64

L.A. Anderson: ‘The Entenga Tuned-Drum Ensemble’, Essays for a Humanist: an Offering to Klaus Wachsmann, ed. C. Seeger and B. Wade (New York, 1977), 1–57

P.R. Cooke and M. Doornbos: ‘Rwenzururu Protest Songs’, Africa, lii (1982), 37–60

L.A. Anderson: ‘Multipart Relationships in Xylophone and Tuned Drum Traditions in Buganda’, Selected Reports, v (1984), 121–44

F. Katamba and P.R. Cooke: ‘Ssematimba ne Kikwabanga: the Music and Poetry of a Ganda Historical Song’, World of Music, xxix/2 (1987), 49–68

P.R. Cooke: Play Amadinda: Xylophone Music from Uganda (Edinburgh, 1990) [incl. cassette]

U. Wegner: Xylophonmusik aus Buganda (Ostafrika), Musikbogen, No.1 (Wilhelmshaven, 1990) [incl. cassette]

G. Kubik: ‘Theorie, Auffuhrungspraxis und Kompositionstechniken der Hofmusik von Buganda: ein Leitfaden zur Komposition in einer ostafrikanischen Musikkultur’, Hamburger Jb für Musikwissenschaft, xi (1991), 23–162

P.R. Cooke: ‘Report on Pitch Perception Experiments Carried Out in Buganda and Busoga (Uganda)’, AfM, vii/2 (1992), 119–25

C.T. Gray: ‘Patterns of Textual Recurrence in Kiganda Song’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, xxiii/1 (1992), 85–100

G. Kubik: ‘Embaire Xylophone Music of Samusiri Babalanda (Uganda, 1968)’, World of Music, xxxiv/1 (1992), 57–84

C.T. Gray: ‘The Ugandan Lyre Endongo and its Music’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, ii (1993), 117–42

P.R. Cooke: ‘Orchestral Melo-Rhythm in southern Uganda’, For Gerhard Kubik: Festschrift, ed. A. Schmidhofer and D. Schuller (Frankfurt, 1995), 147–60

C.T. Gray: ‘Compositional Techniques in Roman Catholic Church Music in Uganda’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, iv (1995), 135–55

J.K. Makubuya: ‘Endongo’: the Role and Significance of the Baganda Bowl Lyre of Uganda (diss., UCLA, 1995)

P.R. Cooke: ‘Music in a Ugandan Court’, EthM, xxiv/3 (1996), 439–52

S. Kasule and P.R. Cooke: ‘Regards croisés sur la vie musicale en Ouganda’, Cahiers de musiques traditionelles, ix (1996), 147–66