Socio-musical and informal ear training
Open-air performances provide the Anlo-Ewe youth, interested in their music, the only opportunity to ear- train and learn their music. We learn by listening and forming syllables from the drum language that we call, "Wu-gbe". While informal and prospective students sing the syllables at their leisure like solfeggio to learn and remember the music, veteran drummers may sing them, tap them out on their drum or on the supporting drummers' shoulder during a performance to refresh their memory. If lead drummers need someone to play an instrument that is vacant, they will beckon to any of the youth from the audience to play. If the youth already knows the part, he doesn't need any instructions. If he doesn't, the lead drummer will demonstrate the pattern and hand him the sticks to play. If he played it correctly, he continued to play. If he failed to play it correctly, the lead drummer would take the instrument from him and give it to another person.

Introduction to Forms of African Music MT 225
I would like to take the opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of African music and dance. What is African music? It is any music that originated in Africa. Each African culture has its own styles of music and the language of the culture influences the music and the rhythmic syntax. To perform the music well, one must learn the grammar of the music. For example, an expert Nigerian musician cannot perform a Ghanaian music, i.e. Anlo-Ewe music, unless he or she has studied it and vice versa. The contents of Anlo-Ewe music include: tempo, meter, and intervals but not the Western idea of "one". The equivalent of the one is the beginning of the rhythmic cycle which Anlo-Ewe musicians feel or hear. The starting point is objective for all the ensemble members. Some of the supporting instruments and the dancers enter the music from the beginning of the cycle while the other instruments in the ensemble may use the "one" as point of reference only. They will then enter the music at the appropriate place of the cycle. If one drops a beat and cannot feel the appropriate place to re-enter, one must refer to the timekeeper for the point of reference before one re-enters the music. Traditionally, one would not hear an Anlo-Ewe musician refering to the beginning of the cycle as one. I looked perplexed when in 1966, one of my students at Columbia University asked, "Where is the one of the bell?" I had never thought of the beginning of the rhythmic cycle as one before. It became clear to me that the student wanted to know when the bell pattern begins. It begins when the song leader cues the bell and the rattles to start playing. If there is no song leader to start the bell, the lead drummer will tap out the bell pattern on the side of the lead drum. On a separate call from the lead drummer, the supporting drummers will enter the music.

There is no one name for the African ubiquitous timekeeper. Different cultures call it by different names, but the Anlo-Ewe call it Gankogui. It is equivalent to metronome and the player must maintain its pattern and tempo for the ensemble. Every member of the ensemble must objectively keep the meter which is the subdivision of the bell pattern. And in addition, musicians in the ensemble must maintain the intervals (the spaces between their patterns)uniformly. Subjective stretching and shortening of the intervals will negatively affect the music.

Although musical differences exist in Africa, it has been said that African music and dance are inseparable. Whenever one hears singing and hand-clapping, one can safely conclude that there is dancing. One always attracts the other. And soon, you would see the participants inviting one another to dance. The reason could be because the music tends to propel everyone in its proximity.

Much is known about rhythm in African music but very little, or if any, is known about form. Based on this knowledge, I would like to define African music as an organised sound with structure, continuity, and communicative rhythmic patterns which inspire the experienced listener to dance. I would discuss the elements of the definition under three categories: For more information, please contact Alfred K. Ladzekpo.

Alfred Ladzekpo with students in Israel - 1992

African Storytellers and Dance Ensemble
The African storytellers and Dance Ensemble was a creative idea in the 80s that became a reality in the 90s. I had thought it might be possible to perform Anlo-Ewe music and dance of Ghana and Togo with a theme to embellish the ensemble's performances and to convey the hidden cultural lores to our audiences. Watching L'incoronazione Di Poppea at CalArts in 1995, I saw the framework. During the performance, it was as if I were watching the opera on one side of the stage and African music and dance without actors and actresses on the other half of the stage. Inspired by Poppea, I wrote three musicals and they were all successfully produced at Cal Arts and one at Pomona College. Because the structure of the traditional music allows for creative interludes, there is no distraction from the form. With audience participation, the African Storytellers and Dance Ensemble will present Ghanaian music and dance with creative and contemporary additions.