 Songs
of West Africa Songbook/CD
Here's
an exciting new resource for anyone interested in African music and culture.
Songs of West Africa by
Dan Gorlin contains over 80 traditional African folk songs and chants
in 6 languages along with extensive translations, annotations and performance
notes. It may be the most complete collection of African songs ever published.
The book highlights traditional songs from the Anlo-Ewe, Lobi, Ga-Adangbe,
Egu, Foh, and related ethnic groups from Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.
There are sacred songs from Afa, Agzogbo, Gadzo, and Yewe traditions.
Also major secular and historical music including Agbekor, Kinka, Atsia,
Gahu, Takada, and more.
Many of the songs are simple to learn, and can be easily taught to grade
school students or adapted to other styles of music. But the scope of
this book goes far beyond children's songs. Each song is explained in
terms of cultural context, and translated in a way that helps you form
your own interpretation of its meaning. You'll discover that singing the
songs of Africa is a superb way to learn about her people, culture, and
history -- and it's fun!
The contents of this book & CD are now downloadable for free! See the end of this page.
 More
Than a Songbook
The text includes music fundamentals, a pronunciation guide, and useful
introductions to West African society, sensibility, and spirituality.
Using the companion audio CD (included) you learn by singing along
like young Africans do - or just listen and enjoy. The CD was studio-recorded
especially for this book, so vocals and harmonies are easily heard over
the supporting drums.
Editorial Reviews
"A terrific resource on African music. Dan Gorlin¹s
opening chapters on African music and culture are well written, informative,
accurate and full of excellent advice for performers. At the heart of
the book are lyrics from a wonderful collection of songs that are carefully
linked to excellent performances on the great sounding CD. The song texts
are sensitively translated and their meaning is well explained. I highly
recommend this book/CD set to everyone interested in African music."
-- David Locke, Tufts University, director
of Agbekor Drum & Dance Society,
author of Drum Gahu: The Rhythms of West African Music and others.
"A truly wonderful resource...and I know from my own
work with Abraham Adzenyah, Freeman Kwadzo Donkor and Maxwell Amoh how
much went into creating it (including the lengthy conversations that gave
you such insight into the tradition). Bravo!"
-- Judith Cook Tucker, Founder & Publisher
of World Music Press,
co-author of Let Your Voice Be Heard: Songs from Ghana and Zimbabwe
and others.
"Dan Gorlin's Songs of West Africa is a welcome and
timely addition to the written and audio repertoire. As African music
has gained in popularity, it has often thinned out in depth. This book
and CD set brings many of the most important elements of this art form
into focus for the reader. Beautifully laid out and easy to follow, this
collection will inspire those already involved in West African music and
provide newcomers with a coherent and substantial introduction to this
wonderful repertoire of songs. Gorlin's clear presentation is obviously
steeped in rich experience and we can imagine the creative community around
him that must exist for a publication of this quality to be made. Its
scholarly integrity and general accessibility make it suitable for educators,
researchers and performers alike."
-- Kathy Armstrong, Co-Founder & Artistic
Director of Baobab Tree
Drum*Dance*Community, Ottawa, Canada
Individual Song Samples
Learn more about Songs of West Africa by browsing the samples
below. For help reading PDF or playing MP3 files, click
here.
Full Songbook Text and CD Audio Online
The Alokli songbook is out of print but the entire book and CD are now available here for free download. The text and audio content provided here from "Songs of West Africa" by Dan Gorlin is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Print it, copy it, perform it, link to it, use it in the classroom, no worries. Just provide attribution where appropriate and don't try to resell it or say you wrote it or make money off of it without getting permission or our international team of high-priced celebrity lawyers with perfect hair will turn you and your relatives into catfood.
To save files to your own computer, right-click the link on PC (option-click on MAC) and select something like "Save link as...". Then you can open your own copies of these files for faster access.
| Full songbook, in PDF format with bookmarks. This file can be viewed, printed, or downloaded to your computer for quick access. If you need hardcopy, just take it to Kinkos and have it bound in a book. |
 Full Songbook (PDF) |
| Front cover page. If you want to get fancy, print this in color on heavy stock. |
Front Cover (JPG) |
| Full audio from CD in mp3 format. 24 tracks compressed in a ZIP file. It's a long download (100MB)! |
Songbook Audio (ZIP) |
|
|
