THE NEW SYSTEM

I am a Ghanaian who participated in the Ghana Project, which was the application of Greenotation, and Labanotation to the music and dance of Africa. This project took place in the University of Ghana at Legon and was taught by Professor Doris Green, who created Greenotation. The ensuing words depict my impression of this experience.

Dance is the life force of mankind. Dance emanates from the feet. Since I discovered my talent in music and dance, I realized that dance is life and life is dance. It is where I find the democratic freedom to express myself. Dance allows me to reach out, touch and satisfy the souls of others. African music and dance also breaks the borders of separation and bring unity, peace, understanding, and love to mankind. I strongly believe that music and dance is something that we cannot afford to run the risk of leaving behind, or seeing them disappear because they are oral traditions without written record. They are an essential part of our lives.

Many of our people have passed away taking their unlimited knowledge to the grave with them. Looking at the context of the world today in Africa, music and dance remain oral traditions passed down from one generation to the next by a mouth to ear process. My ancestors did not have a way to record their music and dance on paper like the western world. If they had, Africa would have been the leader in the music and dance industries. Ghana as the first country to include their culture as courses of study in the curriculum is always looking forward to new and innovative ways to capture our music and dance on paper.

DONNO TENSION DRUMS

In 2002, Greenotation came to the campus. Greenotation is a system designed to notate the music of percussion instruments, as the western system is not adequate to annotate all the nuances found therein. Can the western system tell you if I struck the Lunga drum with a stick and applied pressure to the strings to raise the pitch? It cannot. The Ghana project was also designed to capture the dance, through Labanotation, and preserve both of them on paper to be read, and played from the documents produced. The focus of the project was concentrated on the music/dances popular in the early seventies that are now fading away. TOKOE was the dance selected to be notated. The Laban Writer computer software program enabled us to write the dance movements. We used the music that was recorded in Ghana in 1971, and wrote each step measure by measure until the last drum beat. For clarity, I believe that the Greenotation system is the only way to preserve our music. I know no other system that can be aligned with dance movements. After we had a few measures written, it was clear to see that African dance was graphically structured to the music. The step would occur in the same place each time. Thus I could see where each step was made in accordance to the music.

BREKETE AND DONNO

As Ghanaians we know the onomatopoeia of the music, but to see it on paper was truly a miracle. I believe that this project will benefit my generation and generations to come so that all who are familiar with the notation will be able to read and perform African music and dance. I have also read some of Professor Green's writings in reference to xylophones and tension drums, which are my specialty. The tension drum, or talking drum, is extremely difficult to notate, yet Ms. Green has notated Nokohwa one of our pieces that includes the Lunga (Tension) drum. As a player of this instrument, I say the notation was clear and precise. The introduction of this blessed project is enlightening and will open doors and empowers Ghana to move forward. Many of the teachers and lecturers we have had in the past would teach the same subject differently and confused the students. This was because we had no written text to substantiate our music and dance.

NOKOHWA NOTATION

The correlation between the music and dance was so visual that it instantly reflected that our dance had structure and was not movements done at random. Greenotation has given written form and structure to our oral tradition. It enables us to distinguish the different position for the hand, or stick in drumming open or closed strokes, the rattle, bell and even hand clapping. Each symbol gives us a musical description that tells us what to play and how to play it.

I believe Greenotation is a seed sown for the preservation of African music and dance, which we shall water so it can continue to grow. We have been waiting for such a system for four hundred years. Now that we have experienced it, and know what it can do, we will rally to learn and continue studying this amazing system.

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Alhassan Yawuza is a professional dancer. He was born in Ghana of the Dagomba ethnic group. He was raised in Tamale, northern Ghana. He attended secondary school. He holds a Certificate in Dance from the Noyam contemporary and African Dance Institute in Accra. Since 1999 he has served as a Teaching Assistant at Noyam and is a performer in the Theater Company. Dondo drum (Lunga) and Xylophones are his special instruments.