Our beautifully redesigned, Tenth Anniversary Edition!

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Abraham Kobena Adzenyah (Ghana),
Dumisani Maraire (Zimbabwe),
Judith Cook Tucker (USA)

Click to listen!

ISBN 0-937203-75-0 Book/audio CD SET $29.95

Songs from Ghana and Zimbabwe
Abraham Kobena Adzenyah (Ghana), Dumisani Maraire (Zimbabwe), Judith Cook Tucker (USA)
A classic, now in a beautifully redesigned, user-friendly Tenth Anniversary Edition! Here is a unique collaboration between two outstanding African master musicians and their American student, a multicultural music specialist.
This lively collection includes 19 game songs, story songs, and richly textured multipart songs from the vocal traditions of the Akan people of Ghana and the Shona of Zimbabwe. These vibrant songs and stories stress the importance of active, responsibile participation in society. Full, exuberant participation is also the norm in African music-making, where everyone is invited to take part in creating a unified voice that resonates with the spirit of community.
"This music is offered in friendship to all people. Black, white, yellow, red, or brown, our bonds grow stronger when we let our voices be heard!" (from the Introduction)

This Book-Audio Set includes:

• Authentic arrangements in unison, 2, 3, and 4 parts, many with percussion
• 19 Full-size, reproducible musical transcriptions
• In-depth cultural context, performance suggestions and game directions
• Rock passing, stick, name and hand game songs
  Story songs told by Dumisani Maraire, each with a reproducible printed version of the narrative and song
• Songs in original language with phonetic pronunciation and full translation
• Maps; historical and geographical information
• Numerous photos of musicians, instruments and the countryside
• Illustrations include stamps and money from Ghana and Zimbabwe
• Glossary
• Annotated Bibliography

The companion audio CD features every song and percussion ensemble in the book, with pronunciation where appropriate, and both studio and field recordings.

About the Authors

Abraham Kobena Adzenyah, BA Goddard College, MA in Music, Wesleyan University (CT), is a master musician from Ghana who has taught West African music at Wesleyan University since 1969. He is a Fanti, born in the village of Gomoa Aboso, in the southern central part of Ghana, not far from the coast. He grew up in a musical family, well-versed in the musical and cultural traditions of the Akan people. He studied for five years at the School of Music, Dance and Drama, Institute of African Studies (University of Ghana in Legon), after which he was made master drummer of the Ghana Dance Ensemble. In this role he toured throughout the world. He is the director of the New Talking Drums performing ensemble, a member of Nexus premier world music jazz fusion percussion ensemble, and co-author with the late Freeman Kwadzo Donkor and Royal Hartigan of West African Rhythms for Drum Set.

Dumisani Maraire, MA and Ph. D. Ethnomusicology, University of WA, was born in 1944 at Chakohwa Village in the eastern area of Zimbabwe. He was raised in a Christian home, in a musical family with a tradition of singing every night. He entered the Kwanongoma College of music in 1966, and began playing the nyunga nyunga mbira and marimba, developing a repertoire of traditional music as well as Western. Since 1968 he has taught at numerous schools and colleges in the US, including Evergreen State Colleege (WA) and the University of Washington. In 1977 he founded the Maraire School of African Music in Seattle WA. He was the leader of and toured widely with several traditional music groups, recorded several albums of traditional and original compositions, published articles on African music and contributed 80 hymns to various church hymnals. He was on the faculty of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare for many years before his sudden death from a stroke on November 25, 1999. (See Seattle Times obituary below.)

Judith Cook Tucker, BA New York University (Journalism and Anthropology), MA in Liberal Studies, Wesleyan University, with a concentration in World Music for the classroom. Founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of World Music Press, she is also co-author with Patricia Shehan Campbell and Ellen McCullough-Brabson of Roots and Branches: A Legacy of Multicultural Music for Children, and the composer of several songs for youth choirs. (For more complete bio, see separate Publisher Bio page.)

"Bravo! A book of great integrity!" -- Judith Thomas

"A must for every media center!" -- Kodaly Envoy

"Three years after we taught 'Chiro Chacho' and 'Wai Bamba' to the chorus and percussion students, they are still being sung all over the campus. This stuff is dynamite." -- Guy Dedell, Music Faculty, The Wooster School, Danbury CT