PERFORMANCE CONTEXTS OF SELECTED YORÙBÁ TRADITIONAL MUSICAL FORMS

Abstract

This paper investigates the performance contexts of selected Yorùbá traditional musical forms and identifies hidden and neglected cultural facts about the design and organization of the musical forms. Form, in the context of this study, is the intelligible organization of sound in a way that gives meaning to music for communication to take place. Through music, the Yorùbá people express their worldviews, and philosophies, and show reverence to their various deities, however, scholarships are deficient in the study of performance contexts as musical forms determinant. Against this background, this study traces the performance contexts as factors that determine the Yorùbá indigenous song forms. The adopted ethnographic method involves descriptive textual and structural analysis. Secondary data were sourced through libraries and the internet. The implications of the findings for policy and practice were also discussed. This included among others that the contextual and structural analysis should be adopted and form the basis of theories and forms in Nigerian art musical compositions and analysis. The study concluded that performance contexts are the determinant factor of musical forms, therefore, bringing to the limelight one of the yardsticks of theoretical analysis of Yorùbá musicological studies.