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The Pygmies are a broad group of people who live in Central Africa, especially in Congo, Central African Republic and Cameroon. Music is an important part of Pygmy life, and casual performances take place during many of the
day's events. Music comes in many forms, including the spiritual likanos stories, vocable singing and music played from a
variety of instruments.
Colin M. Turnbull, an American anthropologist, wrote a book about the Pygmies, The Forest People, in
1965. This introduced Pygmy culture to Western countries, many of whom were intrigued by
the seemingly-simple lifestyle they led. Turnbull claimed that the Pygmies viewed the forest as a parental spirit that could be
communicated with via song. Some of Turnbull's recordings of Pygmy music were commercially released, which inspired more ethnomusicological study, such as by Simha Arom, a French-Israeli who recorded a
kind of whistle called hindewhu. The
track was then used by Bill
Summers, Herbie Hancock's drummer, into the song "Watermelon Man",
from Headhunters. In
1993, the popularization of Pygmy music spread with the release of Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez's Deep Forest. Though the fusion of
New Age spirituality with sampled Pygmy music and soft techno was heavily criticized,
the album was a multi-million selling success. Soon after its release, controversy continued amid accusations that none of the
money made from recording was given to the Pygmy performers.
Pygmy styles include liquindi, or
water drumming, and
instruments like the bow harp
(ieta), ngombi (harp zither) and limbindi (a string bow).
References
- Abram, Dave. "Sounds From the African Rainforest". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and
Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 601-607. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books.
ISBN 1-85828-636-0
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