18219

2014
GMTXXX10.1177/1048371313518219General Music TodayHoward

Columns
General Music Today

Traditional Music of East Africa: 2014, Vol. 27(3) 44­–46

© National Association for
Music Education 2014
Experiencing Ngoma in Tanzania DOI: 10.1177/1048371313518219
gmt.sagepub.com

Karen Howard1

Abstract
The concept of ngoma is present throughout Eastern and Southern Africa. Ngoma refers to the tradition of expression
via music, drumming, dance, and storytelling. History, values, education, and even identity can be transmitted between
generations. This article traces the experiences of a music teacher from the United States traveling and studying in
Tanzania, East Africa. In the small village of Chamwino, a traditional music festival provides the backdrop for exposure
to ngoma. Wagogo culture - particularly a style of drumming for women known as muheme and other traditional
instruments - is examined. Suggestions for incorporation in existing curricula are given, as well as available resources
related to Wagogo music and other Tanzanian artists.

Keywords
Africa, muheme, multicultural, ngoma, Tanzania

I am sitting on a rough-hewn, short wooden bench in a
sandy courtyard. The sun is intense at midday in this
remote village located in the center of Tanzania. This far
off the “grid,” water is collected from a well, and the clos-
est electricity source is about 15 miles away. We are gath-
ered under the shade of a baobab tree to keep cool while
hearing musicians tuning their instruments and warming
up their singing voices. Last-minute adjustments are
made to the black cloths (kanga) that the community
members wear when performing traditional Wagogo—
referring to the region and people—music.
The performers gather in a formation that fills three
sides of a square with the last side open for those of us
observing. Men and older teenage boys are along the
back of the square, facing us, holding long sticks. Their
lower legs are covered with at least 20 small, bell-like
instruments (ndalagunyi) that add a steady, ringing osti-
nato with each movement they make. The women that fill
in the sides of the square wear multiple strands of tiny,
intricately beaded necklaces and headbands—the signa-
ture adornment for women performing traditional music
in this region.
Other instruments are brought out to prepare for the
performance. Various sizes of two-stringed instruments
(izeze) are played with bows using a scale that is recog-
nizable as from this region with its emphasis on the
descending tritone and microtones. The men playing
large thumb pianos (ilimba) are squatting low to the
ground rocking back and forth to the beat. A cooking oil
can, flattened and sealed around the edges, serves as a
shaker (kayamba) when hit from the bottom.
One of my favorite features of the performance is
muheme—a women’s genre. A group of women take the
center of the performance space, and each woman places
a drum at her feet. Two women bring an instrument that
looks like a long wooden serving tray (mphongwa) and
lay it upside down on the ground. They straddle either
side of it, each holding a long-handled wooden cooking
spoon. During certain parts of the music, they grind the
spoons back and forth across the top for a low, droning
steady beat. The women sing multipart songs in Swahili
and in Cigogo, the local language. Ululations encourage
the leader and are meant to lift the energy of the perfor-
mance, and accentuate rests in the songs.
The standout of the performance is when the entire
group of men and women break into a vocal ostinato sec-
tion called cilumi (chih-LOO-mee). This unique Wagogo
musical feature includes short vocal ostinati including low
growl-like sounds—almost a “harrumph,” men singing a
short motif in a high falsetto, a low drone that activates
overtones, and a wailing, descending melody all linked
together in a fascinating, hocketing conversation. While
songs appear in each genre presented, the lyrics cover a
wide range of topics, including honoring God, safe sex,
warnings about the dangers of drug use, and, especially,
pride in the community and specifically Wagogo culture.
1
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Karen Howard, University of Washington, Box 353450,
Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Email: howthom@comcast.net
Howard 45
How did I, a music educator from New England, end
up in this isolated village 40 miles from the nearest city?
For the past 20 years, I have been travelling around the
world studying music and dance traditions. Although I
had studied in Africa several times (Ghana and Morocco),
I had not visited East Africa prior to 2012 and knew almost
nothing about music from this area. I certainly had never
heard the term Wagogo. The Wagogo region in Central
Tanzania refers to the area and the people. Swahili is the
main language spoken throughout the country, and there
are many dialects, more than 100, spoken throughout the
smaller regions and villages. Cigogo is the language of the
Wagogo, but people from many different tribes live
throughout the region. Swahili is used as the common lan-
guage to bridge communication between tribes.
I found my way to the medium-sized village of
Chamwino, east of Dodoma, through a friendship with
Kedmon Mapana while I was a doctoral student in music
education at the University of Washington in Seattle. I first
met him during a teacher certification course in World
Music Pedagogy through Smithsonian Folkways. One of
the many instructors throughout the week, he shared a video
he filmed of a women’s muheme group at a traditional
music festival he founded that just celebrated its sixth year.
In all of my years studying drumming techniques through-
out the world, I had yet to see a women’s organization any-
where in an African country. I had goose bumps as I watched
these ladies lay down a solid groove and then sing in a scale
that my ears had never heard and for which I had no frame
of reference. This shock to my aural network left me with
one thought, “I must see and hear this in person.” Fortunately
for me, Mapana was an artist-in-residence at the University
of Washington for the next two years, which allowed me
time to study with him and organize a visit to his home.
During those two years, he taught and shared many of the
traditions of ngoma (Mapana 2007).
What Is Ngoma?
According to the website for Mapana’s organization in
Tanzania, Chamwino Arts Center, the Swahili word
ngoma can be defined in many ways:
When the term is used in music, it is referring to the tradition
of expression through music, drumming, dance and
storytelling. Ngoma transmits history, values, education, and
identity from the older members of a community to the
younger.
The effects of society’s modernization is reflected on the
website:
As Tanzania modernizes, generations of ngoma practices are
endangered. As Christianity increases in East Africa,
indigenous songs are often replaced in church with hymns
from Western Europe. With the loss of cultural traditions
comes the loss of an important component of identity and the
loss of a means for the Wagogo people to offer their art to the
world. Also, technological advances have brought distracting
alternatives to time- honored traditions. (www.chamwinoarts.
org)
To continue the tradition of ngoma in Chamwino, Dr.
Mapana started a festival highlighting traditional Wagogo
music and dance. It started 6 years ago with a handful of
musical groups coming to share music for one day. Now
it is a multiday festival with more than 40 groups travel-
ing from around the country to perform Wagogo music
with their community members. Church choirs, instru-
mental groups, children’s music ensembles, and commu-
nity music organizations fill the roster with all of the
Wagogo traditions.
Incorporating Music Into a
Curriculum
As music educators, we are responsible for engaging with
diversity in the repertoire we teach, and the communities
in which we teach. In contemplating how I might bring
these sonic treasures from Tanzania into my music cur-
riculum, I intended to bring the materials past what Banks
(2004) calls “content integration” (p. 5). The integration
of content from outside of the Western European or
Anglo-European often consists of a song, the translation,
and perhaps some dance steps or instrument parts. We are
unsure, at times, of how to proceed with music that we
did not grow up hearing and performing, or that we did
not prepare for college juries or programs on a school
concert (Mapana 2011).
By viewing the Wagogo music through the same lens
that I apply to all music that I bring to my students, I push
myself to ask the same questions, devise new questions
particular to the culture, and dig for similarities and dif-
ferences in the musical structure, performance practice,
and the social and historical relevance in both the original
culture for the music and the culture where it is taught
(i.e., song from Chamwino taught in a middle school gen-
eral music class). Questions that I ask of every piece,
regardless of genre or culture, include but are not limited
to the following:
•• The form of the song
•• The harmonic function (if one is present)
•• The rhythm patterns
•• The melodic motifs or intervals that are
predominant
•• The meaning of the text and relevant historical/
social references
•• The relevance of the piece within the culture
•• Appropriateness of bringing to a school setting.
46 General Music Today 27(3)
This practice allows me to remove the feeling of “other-
ness” that can blanket a genre that is new and full of sonic
wonder. There are other mysteries to uncover with a less
familiar genre:
•• Phonetic rules
•• Idiomatic references/proverbs with less than obvi-
ous meanings
•• Meaning behind choreography
•• Gender roles
•• Modes of transmission
•• Who performs the music in the original culture.
If you are looking for a way to explore this music for
yourself and with your students without flying around the
world listed below are some great resources:
•• The Chamwino Arts Center has an informative
website (www.chamwinoarts.org) with a multi-
tude of photos, videos, and audio as well as educa-
tional information about the musical traditions of
the village.
•• Kedmon Mapana’s YouTube channel (Kedmon
Mapana).
•• Smithsonian Folkways (folkways.si.edu) has a
large collection of traditional music from several
Tanzanian tribes including Zinsa, Zaramo,
Hangaza, Nyamwezi, Haya, and Jita. Go to the
website and type “Tanzania” into the search bar.
•• Musicologist Polo Vallejo released his 2012 docu-
mentary Africa: The Beat featuring Gogo music
and community members.
•• Sing to the Well: Songs of Hope From Tanzania
[CD]. (2005). Voices from the Nations.
•• Tanzania—Tanzanie: Wagogo Chants [CD].
(2011). Radio France.
Conclusion
During my last visit to Chamwino, I spent one day
teaching music at the primary school. I picked some
songs and chants in English that only used a few words
in the hopes of being able to teach them quickly. To my
delight, one of the teachers helped me translate every-
thing into Swahili. The children learned “Five Little
Bears,” “Shoo Turkey Shoo,” and “The Little Mice Go
Creeping.” The lessons were taught to groups of as
many as 100 children at a time, so I was feeling less than
certain that the songs would last past the hour we spent
together. A couple of weeks later, during my last day in
the village, I attended a choir (kwaya) festival at the
local church. I was standing by an open window enjoy-
ing a muheme group when I felt something tap me
through the window bars. I looked out to see three stu-
dents from the primary school. Their mouths were mov-
ing, but the music inside the church was so loud that I
could not hear anything they were saying. I leaned my
head out of the window to hear them better. I realized
they were singing one of the songs I had taught them
two weeks before. In that moment, I realized that the
transmission of tradition had occurred in both direc-
tions. I was returning home with more songs and dances
to share with my general music students, and I had man-
aged to leave behind some hybrid versions of children’s
music performed in the United States. I wonder what I
will see and hear when I return to Chamwino.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Banks, J. A. (2004). Multicultural education: Historical devel-
opment, dimensions, and practice. In J. A. Banks & C. A.
M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural
education (2nd ed., pp. 3-29). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass.
Mapana, K. (2007). Changes in performance styles: A case
study of muheme, a musical tradition of the Wagogo of
Dodoma, Tanzania. Journal of African Cultural Studies,
19, 81-93.
Mapana, K. (2011). The musical enculturation and education
of Wagogo children. British Journal of Music Education,
28, 339-351.
Author Biography
Karen Howard is a PhD candidate at the University of
Washington specializing in music education and ethnomusicol-
ogy. She will be joining the faculty at the University of St.
Thomas in Minnesota in 2014.