Lives in Musicology: The Humanning Musical Arts Heritage of Original Africa

Abstract

In the indigenous Igbo culture of southeastern Nigeria, the tutelary Deity, Agwu, is credited as capable of imbuing specialist practitioners in the related sciences of music and medicine with super-ordinarily enhanced creative genius. The African indigenous musical arts are a spirit force that prompts and superintends humane interactions, and installs sublime sensitivity as well as instills a humanitarian disposition. Philosophical procedure pervades most aspects of indigenous African life systems and metaphysical cogitations. Born in 1938, I am an Igbo person and was brought up in Igboland. This personal account for the “Lives in Musicology” series of Acta Musicologica relates my indigenous African musicking journey, and my lifelong devotion to studying and embodying the philosophy, theory, and practice of Africa’s humanning musicological knowledge system, as scholar, composer, performer, educator, and events organizer.