Agbekor Dance

West African societies such as the Ewe people of Ghana do not favour the rich harmonic sophistication of the West. Instead they prefer polyrhythm which gives music its vitality.

The drums have a significance of religious or political power, and the drums have their own 'language'. The relative pitch of spoken words affects their meaning in most African languages and these can be imitated by the talking drum.

Performance is directed by a master drummer- MUSTAPHA TETTEY ADDY from Ghana.

The Gangkogui

• has a fixed and unchanging role
• two iron bells joined together
• approximately an octave apart- plays a rhythmic ostinato that the dancers use as a reference point

The Atsimevu 

• master drum that can be played with one stick, two sticks or with the hand
• can be muted and the pitches manipulated- the talking drum
• sometimes plays the gankogui pattern on the side of the drum

The Sogo 

• plays its own rhythm against the timeline and adds variations and improvisations

The time signature is 12/8 however they are not articulated as four groups of three, but as an additive rhythm:

2+3+2+2+3

Gankogui begins alone, no obvious pattern of 2+3+2+2+3. Sounds as if the atsimevu part is syncopated when it first enters.

The sogo enters and plays a 12 quaver length part, but staggered, entering one quaver after the bell.

The master drummer has a much wider variety of patterns, via different pitches and tonal effects. Syncopation in bars 25-6 and 35 and  bars 41-2. This causes polyrhythm and cross-rhythms, characteristic of West African drumming.