Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion

Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion. This article examines the major trends in the evaluation of music and dance in Chibale over the last 40 years.

Music and dance preferences

We observe significant changes in preferences for music, dance, and its performers between the 1980s and the 2000s. There has been a shift in dominance from spirit possession music and dance to christian music and dance. Preferences for other local music and dance items and performers have increased. Furthermore, the area-wide preference for a small number of spirit-possessed mediums has disappeared.
Processes parallel to these changes were the decline of spirit possession and the increase in the percentage of christians, the emergence of a local economy and the improvement of the financial position for many, the rekindling of girls’ initiation, and the increased interest in the position of women and in cultural heritage/identity.

Types of judgements about music and dance

The lists of judgements that we present in the articles on music evaluation are informative … but a bit much.¹See Judgements about songs, Judgements about dances and Judgements about performers. We have tried to provide an overview of these judgements by assigning them to judgement groups based on criteria for music, dance and performance that are used in Chibale.

Figure E: Correspondence analysis of the judgement groups used to evaluate
all the favourite music and dance items and performers.²Surveys 1985/86, 1987 and 2004. Based on Table P.

In red, the six groups of judgements; in blue, the different types of music and dance items and performers judged in the 1980s, and in green, those judged in the 2000s.

Looking at how the different types of judgements are spread across the music and dance items and performers in the 1980s and the 2000s, we see a major shift from the top left to the bottom right of the plot. This indicates a move away from changeable features towards effect, and, to a lesser extent, feeling.

A shift in judgements between the 1980s and the 2000s

Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion. The 1980s (blue) and 2000s (green) judgements about songs, dances and performers show little overlap. A grey separation line has been drawn to illustrate this significant change in the occurrences of the different judgements over these 20 years. This is the major shift mentioned above.
Generally, there has been a decrease in judgements referring to properness, structural features, and, notably, changeable features. Conversely, there has been an increase in those referring to feeling and, notably, effect. In the 2000s, people judge music and dance much more on their effect and, to a lesser extent, the feeling that they evoke. Structural and changeable features are far less important in the evaluation of music and dance. In the 1980s, judgements were more equally divided across the six groups of judgements.

The same shift is observed within the different music and dance items and performers; see Table P. For instance, judgements about Dances to watch have shifted from changeable and structural features and feeling in the 1980s to feeling and effect in the 2000s. This trend holds for all performer types and for items that are watched or judged in real time. Only for Dance to dance and Songs judged from memory have the judgement categories remained more or less the same.

Differences between judgements about songs, dances and performers

In Figure E, the performers are at the left and the music and dance items at the right. This indicates that people use structural features, feeling and effect judgements more often for music and dance items. Whereas they use excellence and properness, and to a lesser extent changeable features, judgements more often for performers. People’s attitudes have become more consuming, so more judgements about performers now belong to the first three groups of judgements. Perhaps in the future, they will evaluate music and dance items and performers with more or less the same categories.

A reduction of the number of judgements

In addition, the plot shows that people use fewer judgements and judgement types in the 2000s. In particular, the need to pay attention to changeable and structural features has been greatly reduced. Consequently, the evaluation has become less detailed and more focused on the more global aspects of effect and feeling. The 2000s judgements are more based on personally observed phenomena: effect and feeling, rather than on features in music and dance that are intended to contribute to their effectiveness.

Excellence is close to properness

Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion. The judgements in the Excellence group state that the item or performer is better than the rest. They do not shed much light on what features made the item or performer superior. We could consider the Excellence judgements as crude versions of two other types of judgements: changeable features (excellence in utilising the leeway available) or properness (excellence as properness in the superlative). Figure E suggests that the excellence group is much more akin to the latter group than to the first. Put another way: excellence judgements refer much more to a high level of properness than to a high level of taking liberty within the borders of what is still effective.

Conclusion

In Chibale, people use three pairs of groups of judgements to evaluate music and dance items and performers: the feeling and effect they bring; the measure to which they are proper or excellent; and certain features they have or have not. In the 1980s, the attention for these three pairs was more or less equal. Between the 1980s and the 2000s, attention for the features dwindled. It shifted almost completely to attention for effect and, to a lesser extent, feeling. The result is that only two pairs of judgement groups have remained. One of them, effect and feeling, is much more prominent than the other, properness and excellence.

The relation between preferences for a genre and judgements about a genre

Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion. People use judgements from the six judgement groups in the evaluation of all main musical genres. However, in some cases, a clear relation exists between a judgement group and a genre.

Judgements about christian music and dance more often belong to the effect category than those of spirit possession items. People use judgements related to the changeable and structural features most often when evaluating possession music and least often when evaluating christian music. Both the christian denominations and the possession cults believe that good music must fulfil certain requirements and that a favourable effect is its ultimate goal. The difference lies in the means that lead to that goal. For christians, this is text, sung and unsung, rendered at the right moment and without mistakes. For the members of the possession cults, it is well-performed music and dancing, along with a small number of other actions, all leading to ‘heat’, hence effect.

Feeling plays a less important role in judging christian music and, especially, kalindula than in items related to ilimbalakata and social dances before kalindula. As seen in the article Sorrow and joy, feelings experienced when hearing music play a part in the local and possession cults’ music and in other endogenous music as the experiential formulation, or recurrent re-experiencing, of the exchange relation with nature. This could explain why feelings play a less important role in the evaluation of exogenous musical genres.

Proverb 171

A framework for the evaluation of music in Chibale

One principle is pervasive: music must have effect. To achieve this, it must be performed well, and for that, some basic requirements have to be met.

Effectiveness is paramount for songs, dances, and gatherings. A teaching text or action (kufunda) also has effect, by motivating you do something better or differently.
BanaNshimbi ∵ personal communication, 1987.

Evaluation of music in Zambia: conclusion. The framework for evaluation appears to consist of two approaches.

The first approach revolves around judgements of properness, structural features, and changeable features. This ‘source approach’ involves examining the features of the musical item, the performer, and the performance. It is about whether a feature meets the requirements for an optimal result of the musical act or item (properness). It may look at structural features of the item or the performance that stand out when compared with the way others handle that feature, thus increasing the chances of a good outcome. Alternatively, one looks for individual choices in certain features of the performance that are known to lead to a good outcome.

In the second approach, the ‘reception approach’, one looks at whether a certain feeling is evoked and interprets this as a sign of a good outcome or as a good outcome itself (feeling). Or one tries to observe whether a certain result has been achieved (effect).

Conclusion

A difference between the 1980s and the 2000s is that in the latter period the effect in most cases is personal, while the effectiveness banaNshimbi talks about for the 1980s is also about improvement for the afflicted, a new perspective for the mourners, a boost to the sense of community, a good or better relation with the mpanga, and the like.
Another difference is that the reception approach has become dominant in the 2000s, the interest in features that are conditional for a good outcome or predict it has all but disappeared.