ABSTRACT
Research on musical traditions in Africa requires examination of a complex web of activity that involves not only music, but all of life. Because music is intertwined with so many other parts of life in Africa, many studies of social, economic, political, or other [orientations issues] involve discussion of music. Anthropologists, historians, folklorists, dance ethnologists, and linguists, as well as ethnomusicologists and musicologists, have written on aspects of music in Africa. African musicology also has developed into its own field, concerned with music in itself and also with the role of music and musicians in African society, the relation of music to other arts in Africa, and issues such as education, gender, and musical developments in the African diaspora (for an overview of developments in African musicology, see DjeDje and Carter 1989). Publications that focus specifically on music in Africa range from overviews of musical features and traditions of the continent (for instance, Nketia 1974; Bebey 1975; Merriam 1982, Stone 1998) to detailed studies of particular musical traditions.
