Comprehension in traditional music

Being a member of people’s cultural troupe, playing the traditional bell for two years gave me a good understanding on the drums. With this I got courage to go to the training early. I trained on the rhythms I didn’t know well. Some of the dancers listened to my rehearsal and danced towards it. This made me to understand function oft he leading drum. This was communication in between drum and dance movement.

People’s cultural troupe was in the earlier 80s till 87 one of the top cultural groups in Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We had very great artists among us. That made our performance so strong and powerfull. We travelled a lot in Ghana. From the Eastern Region  up to Tamale, from the western parts to the Central Region back to Accra. During all these performances we became like brothers and sisters in the group. In some performances some of the group members could not join and if it was me, who was not selected I felt so pain. That gave me power and endurance to train more, so that I could always be selected. So I did.

In 1987 came a very sad day in my life. We went to rehearsal and after prayers we started our training. The chairman of the group got up and informed us that the group cannot continue anymore. I was not a member of the committee and so I didn’t know why. The chairman then said that he will form a new group and any member who wants to be in his group should stand in his side. Many of the artists did. Tears were flowing in my eyes and I watched the leader. The leader then said:“ It doesn’t matter how many people are left, we will still continue the people’s cultural troupe.“ The instruments were devided into two. Many of the costumes were taken by the chairman, because they belonged to him.

 We the members who didn‘t understand what was going on start to yell and say, that this is mean, we are like brothers and sisters, why we cannot understand each other. It was a debate  for about two hours. The chairman just said, I quite understand all of you but this is the solution. He was saying this with a lot of emotions. The other members in his side packed the drums and costumes and left. As they left  some of the members remain with the leader. He then bursted into tears and said: „the sad news is now, that we cannot train here anymore and I don’t also know where we will store the drums and the costumes.“

Then my sadness turned into ennoyance, because by then I dived really into music and it was my everything I had. I said, that they see that some of us come up very well and now they want to destroy the group. The leader then said, that there is  a lot  behind it and we cannot say it now. We are three member who came from the Accra destrict of Nima by then. I said then, that we will take the drums to Nima and we will find a new storing place and look for a training ground. The two other members from Nima then agreed that the drums can stay in their house. So then all the rest of the members packed the instruments to Nima.

Slowly we got an idea to look for a new training place. There was a school in front of my house and I knew the headmaster and I consulted him. He gave us the condition not to damage anything in the school and we can have a training ground there.

I felt as if I won a lottery.

We informed all the rest of the members. One Saturday we all came for rehearsal again. We payed with reduced members, less drums and no costumes.

But in each of our rehearsals we got more and more audience. The young girls and young boys began to get interested in the art we did.

One day after rehearsal we informed the audience, that anyone who wants to join, can come and write his name, register and we will try their ability. Immediatly we got about 15 young girls and boys. In two week we had about 25 young and talented members from the age of 6 till 15.

The difficult part was that our leader, who was training us  had a job in a kitchen in town. So he didn‘t have much time to come to us. The rest of the member who could help, they also had different kind of jobs and could also not come so often.

I was also working, but I always found the time to go to the rehearsal. So the whole work of training the new comers fell into the hands of the three of us living in Nima. Richard was teaching the dancing, me and Koshi were playing the drums and trained the new comers on the drums.

We didn’t have enough drums. I knew a traditional priest in our area. I went and consulted him. He agreed to lend to us some of his drums. His son Emmanuel Aheto was my best friend and he also joined the group through this request. We also rented some of the drums from Kpanlogo groups.

The group was growing big and the drums became many. The result was, that we became loud for the people who lived in the area. They made us to loose the rehersal hall, but just shortly afterwards we found another one. Also there after three week they realized the powerful sound and we have to leave again. The luck was in our side and we got another school, which was called Ananni. There was no problem and we could really heat up and come out with real training without worring about the sound.

Because we are lack of costumes, on our first performance in the area we asked our members to bring cloth of their mother. Each member had to bring at least two yards cloth. We invited the old members to come an join or watch. We performed a great show, which impressed them so much. They began to come to our rehearsal again and with their experience in art, it helped the young ones to pick up the styles from them.

The new ones were really eager to learn and we trained Monday till Friday, every evening.

In one year the old members found themself, that they didn’t fit in anymore. Because they were dancing with the young girls and boys which were full of power. So they also began to help to teach skills.

There was a competition in Accra Kokomlemle and all cultural groups took part. So we also had to train hard.

With these new members we got, we reached the semi finals and had  to trop out then. I felt pain and sad but in the same time I was happy about the youth and I was shouting:“ At least we made it. You are the musical youth!“ Among all the artists we were the new comers and the youngests group. This is were the people’s cultural troupe became the Kusum gboo dance ensemble .

In my stories I mentioned the school of performing arts. One day one of the students of that school known as sister Comfort approached us and she wanted to make a program with us for her studies. The program was planned to educate the public about teenage pregnancy, child labor and drug abuse. We worked with her for many months. With this program we had to perform in many schools in Ghana and finish it in the school of performing art at the University of Legon-Accra.

Through this I got access to watch their rehearsals and performances. After this program I got a lot of experiences, comprehension and creativity in art.

More about next week.

Peter Donkor