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

382 Epilogue
The unfortunate effects of the exclusive use of tonic sol-fa became evident to me during my involvement
as a lecturer in choral studies at the University of Natal. The majority of students registered
for choral studies had only a tonic sol-fa background. They struggled to find repertoire appropriate
for their class work written in tonic sol-fa and had to realise that the amount of music
published in this system is restricted, especially when it comes to pieces that are not part of the
'mainstream' concert repertoire.
Since tonic sol-fa is a one-dimensional tablature consisting of a mere string of letters which do
not communicate any idea of the shape of musical phrases, it is almost impossible to grasp musical
ideas in this notation. The misreading of musical lines is furthermore aggravated by the fact that it
is the usual practice of black students to start off teaching new songs by singing the tonic sol-fa
syllables. The changeover to the actual lyrics of the song happens only in a second phase, when the
choristers are fairly acquainted with the melodic lines. Thus it is very difficult to co-ordinate text
and melody right at the outset of teaching.
The shortcomings of tonic sol-fa become a real obstacle when in the course of their studies
students are required to deal with compositions that contain many chromatic lines, modulations to
distant keys or complex rhythmic structures. Apart from the fact that tonic sol-fa does not easily
convey a sense of tonal coherence, the students cannot develop the skills of reading a number of
voices simultaneously. It became clear that the linear conception of tonic sol-fa impedes the development
of a vertical understanding of music. When the parts are written in a score, even simple
homophone structures become unclear and almost unintelligible. When using tonic sol-fa in more
complex musical contexts, the students struggle to pick up rhythmic and melodic patterns visually,
or to grasp quickly the harmonic context of a number of vocal parts at a glance. Holding on to this
system also prevents students from making progress on the piano.
Despite concentrated efforts during the lectures and the choral ensemble practicals, and despite
the introduction of an additional module that aimed at helping students to become fluent in both
notation systems, even third-year students continued to write tonic sol-fa into their staff notation
scores. It is obvious that the wide-ranging deficiencies of tonic sol-fa make progress for conductors
very slow and in many instances impossible.
Members of the choral community seem to be already alarmed about this problem. Musa
Nkuna speaks of his experiences as a Conductor and composer when he suggests that the adherence
to tonic sol-fa "is one thing what is causing a problem with African choral music... It is unable
to move forward because of problems of notation".23 The plight of many choirs is exemplified in
the statement of Thembelihle Dladla of the Pietermaritzburg Choral Society, who told me: 'We
have got problems with the staff notations. All the years we have been wasting our time with tonic
sol-fa. But all the music comes in the staff notations... at school they didn't teach us [staff nota-
tl " on ]" . 24
Summary of Problems Identified
It seems helpful to list the problematic points which I have identified in this Epilogue:
• The training and expertise of the conductors are in many cases insufficient
• The learning process at competitions remains limited
• Choirs concentrate their effort on the few pieces prescribed for competitions
23 Personal communication with Musa Nkuna, Grahamstown, Rhodes University, July 02, 2000.
24 Thembelihle Dladla, Pietermaritzburg Choral Society (Kwazulu Natal), interview questionnaire,January 30, 2001.