The Formal Imagination
The Formal Imagination
This chapter explains the scope of the formal imagination in African music. Departing from the premise that in these oral cultures form is conceptualized in relation to its communicative efficacy, the chapter first offers an array of vignettes of form from a large variety of repertoires. Then it describes five main principles: call and response, variation, additive form, a narrative impulse,, and moment form. Each principle is animated by repetition, but the degree of repetition varies. Examples of the five principles are chosen from different parts of the continent. The chapter concludes that many African forms are designed to be partial and fragmentary, and thus to engender completion by participants.
Keywords: call and response, variation, additive form, narration, repetition, moment form, fragment
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
