Pressing patrons with proverbs: Talking drums at the Tamale markets1
Linguistic conclusions6
Dagbani is a two-tone language with a mid-tone produced through down-step. The contrast of these tones are frequently exaggerated when replicated on the drum. Each drum pattern transcribed here has a range of three to five tones, which are played fairly consistently by Abdullai. Occasionally a tone may be arrived at through a glide rather than through a stroke of the drumstick.
The phenomenon of two syllables represented by one drumstroke is common. A vowel can receive a separate drumstroke in some cases, as can syllabic nasals. No vowel elision on the drum is seen.
The voices of the lead and support drums interrelate in three ways. The drums may speak entirely in unison, or in a call and response form with clear borders, or they may overlap.
Musical conclusions
All of the proverbial patterns are set in a metric framework; about half transcribed here can be written in 4/4 (or 2/2) and half written in 12/8. The metric framework means that they can all be danced to easily in performances other than at the market. Each proverb is repeated in a cyclic pattern. Some patterns are as short as one measure (seven drumstrokes), while the longest is transcribed here as eight measures (more than 30 drumstrokes).
The number of repetitions given to a pattern depends upon the performance context: is it at a market or at a dance? At an occasion for dancing, each proverb may be repeated for a few minutes before going on to a new pattern. A change of drum pattern is frequently connected with a new dancing patron, though one patron may dance to two or three different patterns. In this case, some of them will probably be dance patterns without words, that is, that are not acting as speech surrogates. When each new patron begins to dance, they are called out by the praise singer and the lead lunga. A sample hour of dancing may move through 30 or more patterns, not all of which are speech surrogate proverbs. Patterns may be repeated within the event for different patrons to dance to. The drumming (with singing) may be almost continuous for one or two hours at a small dance, or all afternoon at a festival.
In a market context, each drum pattern is played once or twice, then the praise singer takes a turn. The singing and speech surrogate drumming alternate in this manner until the patron gives a dash to the musicians, or they give up and look for another patron.
The rhythm of a few patterns is simple (such as (3) above); most patterns are composed of syncopated lines interlocking between lead and support drums. Some patterns are almost completely standardized and offer little room for improvisation (such as (2) above). In other patterns, the lead drummer can choose between several verbal phrases to complete the metric framework with a lengthy fill, which may or may not represent spoken syllables (such as in (4) above). The lead drummer can also play simplified or elaborated versions of some phrases by omitting or adding drumstrokes not representing syllables (such as in (7) above). In a number of patterns, the gungon player has short and/or long fills to play; some of these fills are standardized while others are improvised by the drummer to fill out the measure.