African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms

by John M. Chernoff

Book Overview

"We have in this book a Rosetta stone for mediating, or translating, African musical behavior and aesthetics."-Andrew Tracey, African Music

"John Miller Chernoff, who spent 10 years studying African drumming, has a flair for descriptive writing, and his first-person narratives should be easily understood by any reader, while ringing unmistakably true for the reader who has also been to West Africa."-Roderick Knight, Washington Post...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226103455
• ISBN13: 9780226103457
• Release Date: October 1981
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

the classic

this is THE classic on african music. you will find it listed in the bibliographies of almost any serious study that came later. it is in-depth and comprehensive. if you want to get just one: this is it.

The heart beats ...

This book's sweetness, modesty, humor and graceful scholarship honors one of the world's greatest achievements. It's about drumming, and life.

One of the Classics

This is a remarkable work that fits African music into its cultural context and is consistently provocative and enlightening. It's a world music classic, along with such studies as "The Latin Tinge," "The Brazilian Sound" and "Catch a Fire."

A masterpiece in analytical cultural exploration

What begins as a primer in African polyrhythm becomes a spiritual quest to understand culture and humanity. Don't skip the endnotes in this impassioned examination of musical tonality and rhythm. Forging a tentative balance between scholarship and interpretation, Chernoff's book addresses the subconscious dynamics of culture, and unwittingly explains "race" more convincingly than the agitprop self-promoters whose explicit goal is to deconstruct the historical consciences of Africans and Europeans.