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ENSEMBLE: Mr. Centurio Balikoowa (R) and Dr. James Makubuya (L) play the drums at the end of their concert at DePauw University on Feb. 24. (Maria Chow)
GREENCASTLE, Indiana—Many people think of African music as mainly about drumming. That’s why Centurio Balikoowa likes to start his presentations on Ugandan music with an array of string, wind, and other percussion instruments, leaving the drums to the very end.
A native Ugandan and a teacher by profession, Mr. Balikoowa is one of the last students of Evaristo Muyinda (1916–93), a distinguished musician of the Buganda court. He is highly respected both inside and outside Uganda not only for his extraordinary achievement in mastering a wide spectrum of traditional Ugandan music and dance, but also for his commitment toward revitalizing the Ugandan musical traditions.
That commitment was on display in a varied repertoire of Ugandan music presented at DePauw University in Indiana by Mr. Balikoowa, who was on his sixth visit to the United States, and Dr. James Makubuya, associate professor of music and chair of the Department of Music at Indiana’s Wabash College.
Music and Daily Life
Traditional Ugandan music, as Dr. Makubuya explains, comprises four integral elements: singing, dancing, playing instruments, and acting.
“When people are playing the instruments they don’t just sit still, they move; because all they sing are stories, so they act the stories as they sing or play the instruments. Also [they act] as they dance because some of the dances they perform are ceremonies. For example, in a wedding dance, they show how people are who are married, how they walk and how they dance … So in other words, Ugandan music is a combination of singing, dancing, playing instruments, and acting.”
In teaching the dance ekitaguriro from the Ankole region in southwestern Uganda, Dr. Makubuya vividly described the region’s famous long-horned cattle whose movements the dance mimics. He explained the importance of the cattle to the people—the cows’ flesh and milk supply food; their hide, leather goods; and their dung, natural fertilizers, and so on.
About the four-hole notched flute endere, of which he is said to be today’s greatest player, Mr. Balikoowa said that people in west Uganda play the endere for the cows while they are grazing because “the music makes the cows happy and enjoy the eating.”
The drumming that Mr. Balikoowa introduced is both music and a language. The Ugandan people use drumbeats to communicate all kinds of messages over long distances, such as chiming the hours in watch-deprived villages and calling for help in dangerous situations.
Both Mr. Balikoowa and Dr. Makubuya emphasized that different regions and clans in Uganda have their own musical characteristics, including distinctive musical instruments and unique ways of playing some instruments.
Music and AIDS
AIDS is a prominent theme in the Ugandan songs.
“I feel it in my chest when I sing these songs,” said Mr. Balikoowa, adding that he has relatives and friends who have been infected.
He explained that in many of Uganda’s villages where illiteracy could be as high as 88 percent, songs are the most effective means to educate people about the deadly disease.
“The people can’t read. But when you sing, they come and listen to you. After they have learned the song, they go home and sing it to other people.”
The message of the songs could be very simple. The one sung by Dr. Makubuya in the concert at DePauw says, “If someone feels sick, treat him/her immediately.”
AIDS is also the theme of the 2007 Grammy-nominated CD “Singing for Life: Hope, Healing, and HIV/AIDS in Uganda,” in which Mr. Balikoowa is one of the featured musicians.
Uganda has been one of the leaders among African countries in combating AIDS. One major factor in the Ugandan approach is the pervasive use of music, dance, and theater in educating the people in villages.
National Competition
INCREASINGLY RARE: An 8-string 'ntoogooli' makes use of the hide of the monitor lizard. (Maria Chow)
Traditional Ugandan music is disappearing fast. The older generation is passing away, and the younger generation is more attracted to popular music. The society where the traditional music has its deep roots is rapidly changing.
Even making some of the traditional musical instruments can now be a challenge. For example, the monitor lizard, whose hide is traditionally used to make the front part of the 8-string ntoogooli in order to produce a slightly scratchy tone quality, is increasingly rare.
But Mr. Balikoowa is optimistic about preserving and revitalizing the musical traditions through Uganda’s National Music, Dance, and Drama Festival (NMDDF), of which he is an adjudicator.
The NMDDF, held every summer in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, is a nationwide competition for schools. Actually, it is the final round of a competition whose preliminaries and semi-finals are carried out at various district and regional levels. An award-winning documentary—War Dance—released last year grippingly shows how the festival has helped war-stricken children in Uganda to regain confidence and develop national pride.
For Mr. Balikoowa, the festival encourages the schools to seek out and learn the best of the traditional arts.
“We don’t force them. Because it is a competition, the schools make sure that the students do it right. They look for the old people in order to do the right things.”
Collective Effort
[caption id=”attachment_82330″ align=”alignright” width=”320″ caption=”Mr. Centurio Balikoowa (R) and Mr. Holling Smith-Borne, Director of Vanderbilt University
