Abstract:
The paucity of literature on the allegories of Ghanaian popular musicians and
the unavailability of musical scores have caught attention of scholars in the field
of Music Education, creative ethnomusicology as well as other cognate
disciplines. The study, therefore, sought to unearth the biography and works of
Kojo Antwi, a popular musician in Ghana. Using case study design as well as
theories of humanistic personality and sight over sound, one hundred and forty six works from seventeen albums of Kojo Antwi were collected and five of his
popular works which were hits were selected and transcribed into sheet music
for archival purposes. Interview and document analysis were used to detail his
biography which encompassed his formative years, education and musical
career. Formal and textual analyses were used to determine his style in terms of
melody, time signature, harmony, form, texture, and the sources of his texts. It
was seen that Kojo Antwi is an allegory of popular music studies, an icon of
Ghanaian highlife and a beacon of prolific compositions of popular music. It is
envisaged that the life and works of Kojo Antwi are used as academic material
for music literature and biographical studies.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Music Education, School of
Creative Arts, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies, in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for award of degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Music Education)
in the University of Education, Winneba
APRIL, 2019
