Teacher & Student Resources
Information about African Composers Edition (ACE)
African Composers Edition (ACE) serves African composers and African music primarily by typesetting previously unpublished scores (sheet music). We specialise in transcribing and translating choral music in tonic solfa notation, recognising that few choirs worldwide can access this genre, but we also publish other genres of African art music, and jazz....
Pronunciation Guide to Sesotho Texts
This guide is not a definitive document but a ‘rough guide’ to a language that has tricky pronunciation issues and is known to few people outside southern Africa....
History of African Music Scores
African choral music began to emerge as a genre in late-18th-century southern Africa after the arrival of European missionaries....
Performance
Most music in southern Africa has historically been performed by people who do not sing or play from written scores (see African Music Scores: History), but since the later 19th century notated music has increasingly been used, alongside orally transmitted music....
Instruments and Languages
The voice remains the most widespread 'instrument' in Southern Africa, largely because access to instrumental tuition has been impossible for most people, due to the inadequate funding of African music education over many decades....
read more...Editing
Editing African choral music from southern Africa has to take into account several facts: works are written in tonic solfa notation, original manuscripts are rare, even published scores are; and the music belongs to a strong tradition of practice....
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