Abstract

Living traditions of praise-singing are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, bridging orality, literacy, digital media and the internet. The transcribed text has been the primary focus of scholarship on African oral traditions. Because of the growing number of digital audiovisual recordings available on streaming and social media platforms, it is possible to analyse more modalities of praise-singing. Along with fieldwork observations, this article reports on a multimodal analysis that was applied to music videos and field recordings to study the role of gaze in oríkì, or praise poetry, a cultural phenomenon amongst Yorùbá speakers of West Africa. The Yorùbá proverb “Ojù l’òṛ òó ̣ wà” suggests that “the meaning of the words is in the eyes of the speaker”. Although scholars have addressed the visual imagery included in oríkì texts, to date, no scholar has made gaze the focus of a research study on praise-singing performance practice. To theorise the praise gaze, the analysis drew on a small but growing body of psychological literature on gaze in Western music (and Indian classical music) and, also, participant-observation. Research has shown that the direction of the performer's head, face and eyes plays a role in the reception of Western concert music. However, in praise-singing traditions, such as oríkì, gaze plays a more important role where the singer looking at the addressee identifies the focal point for the audience. If the addressee returns the gaze, forming a mutual gaze, this is likely to increase the “head-swelling” effect of the praise. These preliminary findings on the topic of gaze in praise-singing, specifically Yorùbá oríkì, are intended to be a basis for further research on a central aspect of performance practice in sub-Saharan Africa. It is expected that as research on this topic expands, variation and nuance in the gaze modality will be revealed.

摘要

在整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区都可以找到活生生的赞美歌唱传统，将口述、识字、数字媒体和互联网联系起来。转录文本一直是非洲口头传统学术研究的主要焦点。由于流媒体和社交媒体平台上可用的数字视听录音越来越多，因此可以分析更多的赞美歌唱形式。除了实地考察，本文还报告了一种多模式分析，该分析应用于音乐视频和实地录音，以研究凝视在 oríkì 中的作用，或赞美诗歌，这是西非讲约鲁巴语的一种文化现象。约鲁巴谚语“ Ojù l'òṛ òó ̣ wà”表示“词的意思在说话者的眼中”。尽管学者们已经研究了 oríkì 文本中包含的视觉意象，但迄今为止，还没有学者将凝视作为研究赞美歌唱表演实践的研究重点。为了将赞美凝视理论化，该分析借鉴了一小部分关于西方音乐（和印度古典音乐）凝视以及参与者观察的心理学文献。研究表明，演奏者的头部、面部和眼睛的方向在西方音乐会音乐的接收中起着重要作用。然而，在赞美歌唱的传统中，例如 oríkì，凝视起着更重要的作用，歌手注视着收件人，从而确定了听众的焦点。如果收信人回注视线，形成相互注视，这很可能会增加赞美的“头胀”效果。这些关于赞美歌唱中凝视主题的初步发现，特别是 Yorùbá oríkì，旨在为进一步研究撒哈拉以南非洲表演实践的核心方面奠定基础。预计随着对该主题的研究扩展，凝视方式的变化和细微差别将被揭示。