Music in Ghana
Prepared by Benjamin Knysak
Online only (2025)

The short-lived, two volume journal Music in Ghana contained the proceedings of two conferences, held in 1958 and 1961, of the Ghana Music Society.[1] Led by the young Ghanaian scholar J. H. Kwabena Nketia, the Society and its journal appeared shortly after the formation and independence of Ghana in 1957 from British colonial rule. This political freedom, and its impact upon culture, served as the formative topic of discussion in the conferences and subsequent papers. Along with its peer publication Music in Nigeria (Nsukka, 1964-1966), Music in Ghana presents a window into immediate post-colonial musical and cultural questions, concerning the viability of and potential for a “national” music, music and its relationship to society, governmental support for music, how to support a musical education removed from colonial practice, how to encourage the study and performance of traditional musics, and the role of European music in newly-independent African nations.
At the time of Ghanaian independence, the composer and ethnomusicologist Joseph Hanson (J. H.) Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019) was a research fellow at the University of Ghana. Born in Mampong, he initially trained as a teacher, before receiving a scholarship to study in London, where he studied at the University of London and Trinity College of Music from 1944 to 1949 and worked thereafter as an author and translator before returning to Ghana in 1952. Upon the establishment of the Ghana Music Society in 1958, Nketia was elected President.[2] His influence in the annual meetings of the Society, and the production of the resultant Music in Ghana, is clear, as each volume is introduced with an article by Nketia outlining the research and discussion scope. The delay in publication between the two volumes can be attributed to Nketia’s travels to the United States on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship.
Both volumes of Music in Ghana reflect distinct themes. The first, appearing a mere year after national independence, focuses on larger, structural issues. Nketia introduces the conference topic, “The Development of a National Tradition of Music,” in an introductory paper, followed by a longer analysis of the problematic historical framework and judgements made by European (or “Western”) music writers and musicologists on African music, centered around false notions of European musical universality. Nketia suggests methods of discussing multiple facets of African drum music and drumming, along with a reorientation of musical principles. Atta Annan Mensah, of the Ghana Broadcasting System, discusses challenges of musical professionalism in Ghana. A. M. Opuku writes on African music’s connection with dance and provides suggestions on realization of public performance. A symposium titled “Problems of Notation” concludes the volume. Nketia’s mentor and friend Ephraim Amu writes on pitch and rhythm and proposes a “basic African rhythm” of alternating duple and triple rhythms. Isaac D. Riverson writes on meter and rhythm; Seth Cudjoe provides suggestions on notating drum music. C. O. Botchway of Oxford University Press offers a view into the publisher’s practices in Africa.
The second volume (1963) contains articles centered around compositional and pedagogical topics. Again, Nketia introduces the volume and provides the opening essay, this concerning the state of research on and knowledge of African music. Henry Cowell’s essay “The Composer’s World” discusses aspects of compositional method and discovery. Ephraim Amu provides advice to choral music composers; Atta Annan Mensah similarly does so for those writing for keyboard instruments. Nicholas Zinzendorf Nayo explores the use of folksong in composition, and Robert Sprigge writes on Ghanaian Highlife music. Two articles focus on pedagogical themes, with J. M. T. Dosoo writing on music in middle schools and G. Geoffrey Boateng on training colleges. Ebeneezer Laing writes on the scarcity of musical and audio sources for the study of Ghanaian music and concludes with a list of works presented to the Ghana Music Society.
This RIPM Index was produced from copies of the journal held by Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh.
[1] For more on the history of the Ghana Music Society, its concerts and activities, and the role played by the annual meetings of the Society, see Tobias Robert Klein, "SankÉ”fa oder Zurück in die Zukunft: Die Ghana Music Society 1958-1961." Die Musikforschung 76, no. 4 (2023): 382-92. Although the journal does not declare a place of publication, the Ghana Music Society was formed at the University of Ghana in Legon-Accra.
[2] Nketia signs his opening contribution to the first volume as “President,” though Klein describes Nketia as “Chairman.” (Klein, 384)