CWJEF Music Publications CWJEF Music Publications CWJEF Music Publications CWJEF Music Publications

Since 1997 we have been publishing original print music manuscripts & scores on traditional African percussion music, folk music, art & composed music,contemporary music, classical & jazz music for serious study and concert performances.
We publish works for a wide variety and combination of instrumentations, to include small orchestra, chamber orchestra, percussion ensembles, small & mixedensembles, quintets, quartets, trios & for solo instrument with or without accompaniment. These body of works are written in variegated musical idioms, styles, genres, forms & structures & are idealy suited as performance or study scores or as teaching aids & resource materials for educators, teachers,students, professional musicians & ensembles as well as the amateur musician.

Click to Download our current 2012 PDF Catalog

We publish music for a wide variety & combination of instrumentations, to include small orchestras, chamber orchestras, percussion ensembles, small & mixed ensembles, quintets, quartets, trios & for solo instrument with or without accompaniment. These body of works are written in variegated musical idioms, forms, structures, rhythms & motifs.

Our publications offer a variety of challenging & energetic body of works for small orchestra, complex polyphonic & poly rhythmic works for chamber orchestra, that are pregnant with variegated thematic African motifs & structures, multi-faceted forms & rhythmic structures which will interest the scholar or professional musician interested in detailed analysis, as in the intricacies & structured framework of polyphony in Africanmusic, or the exotic possibilities of structured textures & clusters of dense rhythmic layers innate within pygmy music, a Bulu or a Ngemba xylophone orchestra. The ethnomusicologist or the professional instrumentalist, or music scholar will also be interested in the understanding of such complex forms of orchestration to be found in Bamoum music or a Tikari Masquerade Dance music, where reoccuring clusters of assymetrical rhythmic patterns & multiple aggregates of melodic motifs are simultaneously contained together within a single piece & having a homogenous continuity in form & structure.

Introduction: Music of Sub-Saharan Africa
:: A Brief Synopsis ::

Africa is a continent with numerous ethnic groups, as well as diverse cultural & linguistic groups. A concise & general description of African music is almost impossible as there are no homogenous continuum of a pan-African musical expression which can be classified as one single unitary system, but there are shared commonalities of musical idioms, forms & structures, & most often an identical treatment of musical units in the articulation & expression of musical ideas.

:: Brief Characteristics & Features ::
:: Rhythm :: Melody :: Harmony :: Scales & Polyphony ::

Polyphony, polyrhythm [ex. Pygmy Music ], are some of the distinguishing characteristics & features that are definitive of African music. The occurrences, use & employment of musical elements are distinctly different to other musical cultures. The use of asymmetrical rhythms, additive rhythms, odd meters are common. Dense, multi layered & complex textures, amorphous ornamentations, ostinato, hemiola, specific tonal-harmonic systems are also some distinctive features. Heterophony & counter melodies are other common textural devices that defines the forms, structures, styles & genres of African music. Language, oral poetry as devices for melodic & rhythmical textures, also for percussive effects are not an uncommon phenomena.

:: Scales ::

Common scale systems are the diatonic & pentatonic scales, but other forms are not uncommon & vary between regions. Intervals are often different. Pitch polyphony in the form of parallel intervals (generally III,IV, & V), is common, overlapping choral antiphony, solo-choral response, ostinato, simultaneous independent counter melodies & other contrapuntal devices are in common.

:: Musical Instruments ::

Musical instruments of sub-Saharan Africa have been classified into four categories: Idiophones; these include a wide variety of resonant solids such as rattles, shakers cowbells, stamping tubes. Membranophones or parchment-head drums; such as goblet drums, kettledrums; cylindrical, semi cylindrical, barrel-shaped drums; & hourglass drums with variable-tension heads such as the talking drums. Aerophones; these are flutes; ocarinas; panpipes; horns (animal material) & trumpets such as the huhu trumpet found in the north of Cameroon, Chad & Central African Republic (calabash trumpet); single-reed pipes made from millet stalks; & double-reed pipes adopted from Arabic culture. Chordophones; these include musical bows, zithers, bowed & plucked lutes, harp-lutes, arched harps, & lyres. The body & voice as a percussion instrument are very common, hand clapping, foot stamping & rhythm with foot rattles are common amongst the Masquerade dances & music. Tuned percussions also include; thumb pianos & log xylophones.

:: Other Elements ::

In addition to the above mention characteristics & features; language, speech, poetry, drama, oral literature, theatre, religion are all irrevocably interwoven with music & are musical units which also define as well as determine the idioms, forms & structures.

Scores & Print Music

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