Comparing Timeline Rhythms in Pygmy and Bushmen Music

Abstract

Combining theories of African rhythm from ethno/musicology and findings from anthropological research and population genetics with musical analyses based on transcriptions and computational phylogenetic techniques, this article compares rhythms used in Pygmy and Bushmen music in an attempt to provide new perspectives on an old debate that these musical cultures may share a common heritage. To do this, the comparative analyses focus on timelines: foundational rhythmic features that provide the structural basis of the music. The findings suggest that Pygmy and Bushmen timelines are interrelated and that most are organised according to the principles of 'rhythmic oddity' and maximal evenness. Generative theory suggests that commonly used rhythmic cells, in particular the 3:2 pattern, form the structural basis of many Pygmy/Bushmen timelines as well as many other timelines featured in African and African-derived musics. Timelines are also multi-purpose musical devices used in various different social contexts and their structure appears to be resilient to radical change. Phylogenetic analysis of timelines provides no clear Pygmy/Bushmen ancestral timeline, although it is possible that foundational rhythms such as the 3:2 pattern may have featured in the music of a common ancestral group.

Flexibility and egalitarianism: musical insights from hunter-gatherers

“…In spite of this, elements of Lomax's arguments regarding the link between social structure or cultural 'value' (Grauer 2006: 46) and musical structure were taken up by Frisbie, who argues for the usefulness of music in reconstructing 'culture history ' (1971). Later, based on analyses of polyphony among Aka and Ju|'hoansi, Grauer makes the argument that musical evidence might link these two groups evolutionarily (2009, critiqued by Cross 2006), a line of thinking discussed by Poole in his comparison of Pygmy and Bushmen rhythmic timelines (see also Poole 2018). Cross-cultural work has also been undertaken by Olivier and Fürniss (1999), who argue that Aka and Ju|'hoansi peoples conceptualise counterpoint differently, and that Ju|'hoansi music is therefore in fact not true polyphony.…”