The Socio-Cultural Context of Akan Ethno-Musical Games and Their Relevance to the Lives of Children in Ashanti Region

Abstract

Musical-games present a highly pervasive new platform to create, perform, appreciate and transmit knowledge among children. This study therefore sought to identify the enthno-musical games among Akan children in the Ashanti region that could be relevant to their cognitive development. The study mainly used ethnographic research case study design. Observation, video recording and focus group discussion were used to glean data from study participants. The findings were presented in text and notations. The study found the ethno-musical games among the study participants to include: Kyerε Wo Ti/Kyekyekule (Body-Part Pointing Game), Antoakyire (Circle-Round Game), Awoda Agorכ (Birthday Game), כBoכ Asi Wo Nsa (Stone-Passing Game) and AsכBa (Teen-Jump Game). Others included Atintim Adeε (Strenth-Test Game), Pempenaa (Elimination Game), Dua O Dua (Mammal Tail Game) among several others in the study area. The study found these ethno-musical games to present a unique, yet relatively untapped activities to help cognitive development of children. This warrants investigation of the potentials of these ethno-musical games to promote engagement with music, and the wider benefits of cognitive and psychomotor development in the lives of children.