African Meter: Measured Music Without “Measures”

In the measured music of sub-Saharan Africa, time is structured in three types of units: • The beat, namely an isochronous yardstick, a series of equidistant points (often named “basic pulse”, “tactus level”, “regulative or reference beat”), which is equivalent to the medieval tactus. • The elementary durations (“pulse”, “fastest pulse”, “elementary pulse-unit”, “density referent”,) which indicate the subdivision modes – binary, ternary or mixed – of the tactus. • The cycle, highest level unit, within which a sequence of tactus acts as an armature and constitutes the framework of musical events characterized by repetition practices. In this context, I propose to conceive meter as the whole of these units. From the outset, it is important to note that the tactus is not subject to any regular hierarchical grouping (by 2, by 3, etc.). In other words, the system ignores the notion of a “strong” beat that would necessarily be opposed to one or more “weak” beats; between the tactus and the cycle, there are no metric intermediates. As a corollary, the notion of “measure” is therefore absent here. This term only makes sense in the context of music predetermined by this mold. However, it is clear that, despite this obvious fact, most music theorists, as well as ethnomusicologists, transcribe African music using time signatures and Western-style bars, and consequently use a terminology that is largely inadequate for their analysis. Many misunderstandings arise from this situation. However, they could easily be cleared up if we were to accept the tactus as the cornerstone of this metric system, and not the fast pulses that are still favored by the ethnomusicological community. Contrary to the majority of ethnomusicologists who consider the “fast pulse” as guiding the performance of traditional sub-Saharan music, I am convinced that it is the tactus that assumes this function. This is the first point that I will attempt to demonstrate with arguments. After that, I will try to answer the question of which concepts to use – or to banish – to describe this heritage without betraying the conception that those who practice them have.