#fontomfrom

Fontomfrom Amandze Awards Launched To Celebrate Community Excellence In Takoradi @FontomfromE

Fontomfrom Amandze Awards, an award scheme from the stables of Fontomfrom Empire was launched this week on the 10th July,2019 at the Grace Angel Conference Room,Takoradi.

Eva Sheita Kumah-CEO FontomfromEmpire. Photo: PyroStudios

The scheme is to appreciate the works of various individuals and organisations in the society that are impacting lives in the community hence its name “Amandze”.

Fontomfrom – Do It (Feat. Yogi Doggy)

  Check out this jamming track from Gold Coast Alliance boss, Fontomfrom. He calls this Do It and it features our very own Yogi Doggy.

Fontomfrom – Do It (Feat. Yogi Doggy) [DOWNLOAD]

http://www.ghanandwom.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Fontomfrom-Do-It-Feat.-Yogi-Doggy-GhanaNdwom.com_.mp3

Fontomfrom ft. Yogi Doggy – Do It

​Veteran Hiplife/Dancehall Singjay, Fontomfrom, is back on the scene with a new one featuring his long time friend and colleague Yogi Doggy. Titled Do It the song is an uptempo commercialized Hardcore Dancehall cut.

Download and listen.

http://eboxafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Fontomfrom-ft.-Yogi-Doggy-Do-It-www.Eboxafrica.com_.mp3

The industry needs to recognize Yoggie Doggie properly – Fontomfrom

  Fontomfrom

Ghanaian Musician Fontomfrom has made a call on the industry to pay reverence to its old Artistes. He lamented heavily about how new generation musicians hardly pay attention to the old ones and how the new generation of Artistes disrespect the ‘old order’.

Check Out : Brella – Botos (Prod. by Abochi)

According to Fontomfrom, “the Ghanaian Music Industry is such that, when you don’t…

The Industry Needs To Recognize Yoggie Doggie Properly – Fontomfrom

  Ghanaian Musician Fontomfrom has made a call on the industry to pay reverence to its old Artistes. He lamented heavily about how new generation musicians hardly pay attention to the old ones and how the new generation of Artistes disrespect the ‘old order’.

According to Fontomfrom, “the Ghanaian Music Industry is such that, when you don’t have your songs on current airplay or hit songs,…

The Industry Needs To Recognize Yoggie Doggie Properly says Fontomfrom || @DJNIIBONGO @apaapalive @IamTwincity

Ghanaian Musician Fontomfrom has made a call on the industry to pay reverence to its old Artistes. He lamented heavily about how new generation musicians hardly pay attention to the old ones and how the new generation of Artistes disrespect the ‘old order’.

According to Fontomfrom, “the Ghanaian Music Industry is such that, when you don’t have your songs on current airplay or hit songs, everyone…

So I’ve mentioned Fontomfrom before, and wanted to talk about it a little more in depth. Now talking drums usually have cords connected to the skin that is pulled over the head of the drum. As shown here:

Picture Sources: Dundun Talking Drum

This is so that the drummer can change the pitch of the drum by squeezing or releasing the cords. A Fontomfrom ensemble includes the two talking drums atumpan. The atumpan look like this:

Picture source: Atumpan

One is a female drum and the other is male. You may have noticed that they lack the cords that the other talking drums have. The two drums are tuned to each other, the male one being a higher pitch than the female one. Fontomfrom is from the Akan people who reside mostly in Ghana and their native language, Twi, is bi-tonal, so the two drums with different but corresponding tones are able to talk in Twi. The atumpan is played with two bent drum sticks usually by a master drummer. They are made from the wood of the Tweneboa and the Akan used to make sacrifices to the tree, such as an egg or a mouse though this is no longer practiced. The drum is made from a single piece of wood and is open at its narrow base. The Ashanti, another ethnic group on the Gulf of Guinea, believe the atumpan to be sacred and so do not attach any blood, jawbones, or skulls to it.

As mentioned, the atumpan make up an important part of a Fontomfrom ensemble. Akan Fontomfrom is a very important part of Akan culture. A Fontomfrom ensemble is made up the dawuro bell and three pairs of drums. The first is a pair of from drums, a tall, heavy, low-pitched drum, the second pair is the atumpan which are also heavy though not as tall as the from and higher in pitch, and finally the pair of eguankoba drums which are small and very high pitched. The leader of the Fontomfrom ensemble plays on the from drums.

Pictured below are the drums that make up a Fontomfrom ensemble. The two unlabeled drums to the far right are the eguankoba.

Picture source: Professor Lee’s Lecture 4

Akan chiefs used to have most of the political power in Ghana but in recent times, that power has been transferred to the Ghanaian government. Chiefs are still present though and often settle small scale land disputes and similar problems. They may not have to same political power they used to but they are still chiefs and as such represent their power in other, traditional, ways. For example, purchasing a royal set of Fontomfrom and funding performances, is an Akan chief tradition. The ensemble plays whenever the chief makes a public appearance, like at village ceremonies or funerals. My professor showed us a video of a Fontomfrom performance which to me seemed like a procession or ceremony as there were lots of people walking around who were talking and shouting as well as someone in a chair being carried by a group of men who I assumed was the chief. The person being carried was in fact the chief, but the event was actually a funeral, which seemed strange to me because no one seemed sad or in mourning, in fact there were people dancing to the drums. It’s interesting to see how different cultures approach momentous events like birth or death, and for the Akan, these events would be incomplete without the presence of a Fontomfrom drum ensemble.

Here is a link to the video that we watched in class. It’s easy to hear the drums and the bell at the beginning, but if you watch long enough (or skip ahead) you eventually the see the two tall from drums and the smaller atumpan.

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Sources

Atumpan

Professor Lee’s Lectures

            When our professor taught us about talking drums, she mentioned them in the context of Akan Fontomfrom (which we will get to later). In these ensembles, two talking drums are present, a male drum and a female drum. I wanted to find out how exactly they classify a drum as either male or female. My original theory was that it was based on the highness or lowness of the pitch of the drum. I thought that the drum that made the higher pitched sound would be considered the female because women generally have higher voices than men, so therefore the lower sounding drum would be the male. I found out this is only sometimes true and not even for the reasons I have given. John Carrington, an English missionary who spent a lot of his life in the Congo and learned a lot about talking drums, explains how the drums are classified in his book The Talking Drums of Africa. Carrington also initially assumed that the gendering of the drums was based on the pitches, and so believed the Africans were being inconsistent when they told him one drum with a low pitch was male and another drum with a low pitch was female. He soon discovered that high and low pitches were not recognized in African music, instead they focus on “bigness” and “littleness” of sounds. “Bigness” meaning a loud and forceful timbre and “littleness” meaning a soft, gentle timbre. The drums that had the loud penetrating sound were labeled male and a drum with the gentler sound is female.

             So now that we know how drums are classified, we can understand why some low pitched drums are male and others all female. Carrington tells us it all depends on the size of the drum. Some village talking drums are small. In this case, it is the higher note that is more powerful and penetrating, so it is considered the male drum. In the villages with large talking drums, it is the lower pitched drum that has a more powerful, farther traveling sound so it is considered the male drum. Male and female drums are tuned to each other and they work together to send messages.

             African drums can also take on identity more specific than just male and female. They can represent different members of the family, specifically, the mother and her children. Michael Varner, the Director of Percussion at the University of Texas at Arlington, took a leave of absence and went to Africa to study the Yoruba talking drum, the dundun. When playing in a Yoruba drum ensemble, there is one larger drum accompanied by a group of smaller drums. Yoruba drums are categorized into iya ilu (mother drums) and omele (baby drums). All of these drums are talking drums, meaning that they mimic speech. Yoruba drums do more than imitate speech though, the hierarchy within the ensemble and the interactions between the drums are reflective of Yoruba family structure. The iya ilu leads the group; it sets the pace and decides the song. The omele are subdivided again into isaju (fixed high pitch) and atele (fixed low pitch). These drums play different, interlocking rhythms that the iya ilu builds upon. Michael Varner has a TEDx talk on Youtube where he explains the familial relationship between these drums and a couple others that are not covered here. Here’s a link (the link starts you at the point where he starts talking about the drum family).

             I was really fascinated to learn about the African classification of male and female drums, and how they describe sound. It is also interesting how the drums can represent their social structure. Yoruba drums almost directly imitate the family unit and how they live and interact, and their classification of male and female drums reflect how men and women are viewed within their society. Talking drums do more than just mimic speech patterns, they also reflect the structure of the society from which they originate.

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Sources

Drums

John F Carrington

The Talking Drums of Africa by John F. Carrington