Rhythmic design in the support drums of Agbadza

The Ewe percussion music of Ghana is one of the African musics best understood in structural terms at this time, due to the efforts of a number of researchers. The aim of this paper is to further this accumulation of stylistic information by a detailed analysis of support drum characteristics in the Ewe music Agbadza. Enough data are analysed to make suppositions about general guiding principles which appear to operate in this music. The source of these patterns is primarily my personal study with Ewe master drummer C.K. Ladzekpo, who lives in Berkeley, California. All the patterns were transcribed from performances or demonstrations by African music ensembles led by Mr Ladzekpo.