Saxophone Solos in Ghanaian Highlife Music: An Analytical Study of Tempos and the Ramblers International Bands

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.