Agbazankpivvicco a contemporary programme music based on the music of the samanpiid festival of the Kusasi people

Abstract

The study espoused the idea of music acculturation in the mode of creative dynamism, consciously searching the elements of the Samanpiid festival of the Kusasi people of the Upper East Region and amalgamating it with the Western compositional techniques to create a relatively atonal programmed music of the African and more especially the Kusasi tradition. The study was conducted among the Kusasi people of Bawku in the Upper East Region of Ghana. It adopted aesthetic functionalism theory on social functions wherein meaning of music is derived from the role music plays in the lives of those who make it. Moreover, the research pivots on the Culture-Information (CI) theory in which creativity is a product of the interplay of culture (environment) and information (knowledge). The field study design was used for the data collection and twentieth century compositional techniques were used to create a hybrid novelty called Agbazankpivvicco. The novelty was analysed and a definitive analysis which will lead the listener and the reader through the piece was written. In the nut-shell, the researcher identified, documented, extended and recreated some of the musical forms of the Kusasi people within the Samanpiid festival to come out with this original work, providing a platform for the possibility of future research into other musical forms of the Kusasi people.