Okugunjula: The Oral Tradition

The Baganda people of Uganda have a concept of educating the young that involves almost every member of the clan, including friends and all family members. This type of education uses Luganda, the local language of the Baganda people, and is known as Okugunjula, which is translated as “upbringing.” According to Kigozi (2008), Okugunjula is an indigenous concept of educating the young involves every member of the clan, friends and family. Inherent in this oral tradition is the act of preparing, training, and transforming a learner into a mature and responsible citizen.

Therefore, the act of preparing, training, and transforming a young child into a responsible member of society was always of utmost importance to the community. A child had to be inducted into the heritage of his predecessors which is manifested in the music, poetry, art, drama, dance and stories including mythologies, legends, genealogies, proverbs and oral history of the land. (p. 18)

Within Okugunjula informal environments happen mainly during community events and gatherings outside school. This provides many opportunities for learners’ to directly engage with musical activities. Learners compose as well as perform music through oral processes as part of indigenous education from the very onset. While learners are normally in position to make music at all times, strategies for imparting creativity and knowledge are dependent on how music is accessed.

In the rural areas, learners are brought up immersed in the oral tradition of creating music by through listening and observation. While composing in these contexts is based in oral traditions, high levels of creativity, knowledge, and engagement of the traditions of the culture are demonstrated. Creativity is not simply about creating a piece, but rather a dynamic activity involving interplay between several role players within the culture. It calls for composers to understand the context in which music-making is happening, thus allowing the composition to portray the full intentions and contextual significance of the community. Consequently, culture should be considered as the first composer; it sets the tone regarding the raw materials, including the elements and concepts that are assembled into what then becomes a music composition representing the process and final product of musical creativity.

Under the oral processes, learners become active listeners. Listening is the main conduit through which creativity is perceived by the very young. There is evidence of creative norms and practices supporting the idea that music composition and performance in traditional cultures has a conceptual basis. The ability to perceive the manipulation of sound is largely dependent on active listening rather than on aural skills and general music literacy. For every sound made by learners in the oral, non-formal, and informal environments, whether controlled on not, there is a degree of learning that happens ranging from awareness of the feelings arising from the sound produced to emotional feelings produced from hearing the created sound. Learners organize their sounds for personal pleasure and effect on their peers whenever they meet to play. As they grow and develop, they become more familiar with their environments, often using their own bodies as immediate source material.

The oral tradition of Okugunjula defines how people live within the same culture. They are bound together in harmony defined by how they transact lives based on musicmaking on a regular basis. Music is not only experienced but lived without restrictions and undue interference regarding rules and procedures. Everyone participates without worrying of conventions and regulations as it is in the West, which is one of the main attributes of the music-making process of Okugunjula. What might be considered in the West as rude behavior—people interrupting performances by adding in with clapping, singing, dancing, shouting, and stamping—is what makes the oral tradition correct and effective in imparting creative skills.

The Okugunjula uses high levels of narrating, listening, and memory, all of which are core pillars of a comprehensive education. It is also a vehicle of intergenerational transfer of social philosophy, values, and crucial information. The government of Uganda has yet to prioritize the development and safeguarding of the oral tradition just as it has prioritized health, agriculture, wealth creation, and human rights, among others. Even though the oral tradition has good cultural and educational intentions in terms of preserving as well as enriching development interventions, it has been a challenge to reclaim it and effectively integrating it into the structured school system.

Music Education and National Unity.To repair the social effects brought about through years of ethnic conflict and civil wars, the government of Uganda decided to introduce a music education program to promote national unity and pride. The government sponsors music competitions amongst schools based on music creativity and performance. The main objective for the music festivals is defined by the mutual process of socialization and educating the masses about children rights and the country’s constitution. As part of the reforms aimed at the education sector, these programs feature primary and secondary school music festivals. Learners at all levels experience the processes of music composition during the annual district and national level music festivals.

The integrated art forms of the festivals include music, poetry, dance, drama, and costume. The festivals present opportunities for learners to engage music creativity based on folk songs, plays, skits, poems, and music pieces based in the Western classical style. Each year a different theme is identified. As a result of the national festivals, schools began to offer similar internal music programs. Each year, schools organize inter-house and inter-class music competitions that require students to create original compositions through processes guided by festival directors, demonstrators, and trainers. These low- pressure experiences create more platforms for creative collaboration amongst learners. They learn to work toward a common goal, share ideas, and respect each other’s contributions. The timeline for presenting compositions drives students to quickly develop these skills as they work.

Within the prescribed festival criteria, space is provided for performance composition, a type of creative performance inherent in indigenous African musical practices involving the re-composing of familiar indigenous songs during musical performances. Performance composition involves the use of compositional techniques in the creative processes that include preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Performance composition varies from improvisation with regard to the way compositional techniques are used in the composition processes.

Spontaneous Creativity.Adedeji (2005) states that each African country uses relevant and workable methods, even those that are yet to be systemized into theories. He further points out features of African music such as repetition, oral, improvisation, extemporization, spontaneity, creation and recreation, percussiveness, sacredness, boisterousness and expression of exuberance and high spirits, integration of other arts, audience participation, and an unlimited world of sounds. These features are also situated within approaches to teaching and learning that include apprenticeship, parenting, imitation, lifelong development, and metaphysical dimensions. Dramatic movements and dance are also spontaneously introduced by the audience and, even though it may seem incompatible, that is how spontaneous improvisations and compositions are made. It is the process rather than the product that matters here, and learners benefit from these positive experiences.

Performances of indigenous traditional folk songs are another way in which learners directly experience music. The value and entertainment aspect of the indigenous traditional folk songs is inherent in the extent to which the audience interacts with the performers and narrator through music and dance and through dialogue and comments. Because all songs begin, accompany, and conclude with a story, the musical arts form part of the performance, creating a spontaneous composition in which both the performers and the audience—including parents of learners—have equal opportunities to express creativity through music and dramatic ideas. In these settings, learners are exposed to a complex array of improvisation and spontaneous creativity activity as well as other forms of music creativity.

This level of creativity and expression flows naturally from every learner and should merely be unlocked (Slade, 1966). Music educators across secondary schools talk of notable development in their instructional skills resulting from teaching composition in a manner that embraces creative immersions rather than one that follows a prescribed, book-oriented, music education curriculum. Teachers, together with students, gain confidence in their skills and abilities as they learn together. This process empowers teachers to better ascertain students’ compositional needs and capabilities. It also reinforces the value of teachers stepping out of their comfort zone to stretch beyond their training as they challenge their students, as well as themselves, to take musical risks.