South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

354 Westem Repertoire
interval is the equivalent of 100 Cent. Looking at the table reveals that the interval of a fifth in
equal temperament is two Cents lower than the perfect fifth (3:2). The equal tempered third
however, is quite sharp and lies fourteen Cents above the natural third (5:4).
Pitch: doh ray me fah soh Lah ti doh'
Ratio: 1 :1 9:8 5 :4 4:3 3 :2 5:3 15:8 2 :1
Just intonation
(in Cents) 0 204 386 498 702 884 1088 1200
Equal temperament
(in Cents)
0 200 400 500 700 900 1100 1200
Difference
(in Cents)
0 +4 -14 -2 +2 -16 -12 0
With this framework we can now try to judge the accuracy of 1\tIngoma's claim that intonation
problems of amakwCfYa groups were the result of different tuning systems. A point already made in
Chapter 5.3.1 (page 135) can help us here. I pointed out that, as in many other cultures, Zulu musical
grammar is based on these pure harmonics. The determining factor, in
the case of Nguni tradition, was the overtone structure of the musical bow, a
one-stringed instrument that can produce only two fundamental notes and a
series of corresponding natural harmonics (see Figure 13.1). In order to produce
a melodic line, the player emphasises specific overtones by opening or
muting the resonator (a calabash or the oral cavity). Bow songs, like the ones
performed by Princess Magogo, are at the heart of traditional Nguni music
and can be treated as the formative influence. Presumably when Mngoma
speaks of the "inherent sense of acoustical pitch which is a part of [the African]
cultural heritage",29 he has in mind the harmonic and melodic structures
produced by the bow, which represent the above-mentioned system of just
intonation.
7 654
3
2
1
Figure 13.1: Overtones
of the uJ!hubo
If Nikolaus Harnoncourt is right in his assertion that "by nature, the human ear is like a blank
sheet of paper, ready for the intonation marks of the piano tuner, the radio, the music teacher",3° a
sense of intonation is 'programmed', either actively or passively. This allows two conclusions as to
the validity of Mngoma's statement. First, it seems questionable whether African choristers who
have grown up in an urban environment - in the nineteenth century carefully shielded from traditional
African influences by the missionaries, and in the twentieth century increasingly exposed to
Western music through radio and the recording industry - could possibly have inherited a tuning
system that prevents them from accommodating equal tempered pitch. Second, I want to argue that
the ear is not necessarily restricted to a single tuning system, rigid once programmed. It is quite possible
to achieve an awareness of the need for flexibility within different systems. Regarding my dis­
cussion of equal temperament and just intonation, I would claim that every good string or wind
instrument group and, in a similar way, every choir uses just intonation when it comes to performing
music without a fixed tone instrument. Only when a keyboard instrument, for instance,
accompanies the singing of the choir, will the performers begin to adjust to the equal temperament
of the keyboard instrument. A performance by a choir and an orchestra therefore is not necessarily
based on equal tempered pitch.
29 See footnote 21, page 352.
30 N. Harnoncourt, Baroque Music Todqy: Music as Speech. Wqys to a New Understanding of Music, (portland: Amadeus Press,
1982): 80.