Abstract:
Highlife dance band music is one genre of popular music in Ghana that makes use of both
Western and African idioms. This makes highlife music to be enjoyed by both Africans and
Westerners. One unique characteristic of this type of highlife music is improvisation. Other
instruments such as the trumpet and guitar perform this style but the saxophone instrument,
is preferred above all the others.
This study aims at recording and compiling selected saxophone solos by the Tempos and Ramblers
highlife dance bands through live and prerecorded media. The saxophone solos will then be
transcribed to and studied more critically. Analysis will be to identify the styles and techniques that
are used such as vibration and pitch bending. The study will also examine other musical
elements such as melody, scale, rhythm, pitch, articulation, phrasing, dynamics and tonal
organization. Since it is a well-known fact that Ghanaian dance band musicians do not read
music from scores I shall find out possible traces of variations, copious repetitions and
similarities of rhythmic patterns in the same music performed on different dates and
conditions as well as locations, stock progressions and other points of interest when Western
and African idioms are combined. In addition, I shall listen to other instrumental solos and
draw my own conclusions on why the saxophone is the more preferred instrument for
improvisation.
Other research strategies will include libraries, interviews, participant observation, and employment
of qualitative data collection. It is expected that the compilation of saxophone improvisation
repertoire will reveal the contribution of Ghanaian highlife dance band music and will serve as
reference material for the study this style of popular music.
