Accelerando: BJMD (Feb 2022)
STUDY OF SOME NIGERIAN ART MUSIC COMPOSITIONS: TOWARDS A THEORY OF SUPPLICATIVE MUSICOLOGY
Abstract
The strong need for supplication to higher authorities or deities has been a key part of people’s life since the creation of humans. In African religions and all the modern-day religions (Christianity, Islam etc.), supplication is a major part of their religious practices. Adherents of those religions are encouraged to take part in corporate prayers, they are further encouraged to have a quiet time with their maker. Praying in most of these religions is usually through speech, quietness and singing. The contextualization of some of those songs meant for corporate worship are supplicative. The focus of this research is on some art music compositions that are contextually supplicative. This work will do a musicological analysis of some Nigeria art music compositions that their contextualization is considered to be supplicative. The focus will be on three art music compositions with the following titles and composers: Emi yiogbeoju mi soke wonni (“I will lift up my eyes unto the hills”) by T. K. E. Philips, Adura fun alaafia (“Prayer for peace”) by Ayo Bankole and Jesu wafara re han (“Jesus come and manifest yourself”) by Debo Akinwumi. The study will be rested on ‘Supplicative Musicological Theory’ coined by this author. In other to achieve the goals of this qualitative research, the author will depend on direct interviews and interviews through internet sources such as electronic mail, WhatsApp and the Facebook. The author will also use the scores of the songs in doing the musicological and textual analysis. The author’s secondary sources are textbooks, and other bibliographical materials such as journals, magazines and other internet sources. Many research works have explained the effectiveness of music as a strong means of communication. This research is recommending further contextualization of art music to address the corporate and individual supplicative needs of the society.
