Keywords

Introduction

Music and music making humanises us. Seeing through the eyes of Utu, a philosophical framework found in East and Central Africa, affirms this.Footnote 1 This chapter will begin with an exploration the etymology, epistemology and ontology of Utu. It will then be followed by the understanding of music and music making used within the framework, with the understanding that they are spaces of knowledge creation, interrogation and production. It is then proposed that the emergence of knowledge within participatory music making arises from the relationships between the entities and participants and their action/interaction. This knowledge is embedded and embodied into the lives of the participants who will then validate its truth. Through the principles of relationality and connectivity, the aesthetics of life in and through music and music making will be described.

This exploration will highlight some of the limitations of the descriptions of African music which has been the prerogative of anthropological and ethnomusicological inquiry, framed by Western hegemonic knowledge structures (Murungi, 2011) for a non-African audience. Therefore, the ruption that Utu offers in guiding this exploration on African ways of being, proposes an alternative approach to the philosophical discourse on music education, arguing for the human right to participate in life in and through music and music making.Footnote 2 It also argues for an alternative approach to creativity and education through the principles of relationality and connectivity. This framework and the principles highlighted can therefore be applied to conceptualisations surrounding the participants (human and non-human) of an educational encounter, and how their diversity, creativity and care can be provided for.

Therefore, what is Utu? A definition of the word Utu is problematic for two main reasons. Firstly, definitions have the tendency to confine meaning in fixed boundaries that may not comprehensively capture all that the term entails. Secondly, answering a what question is a mechanistic approach that positions Utu as some-thing that can be observed, measured, and analysed. That is a form of methodological colonisation because this objectification relegates Utu to a list of characteristics which are, at best, only indicators. Cognisant of these pitfalls, Utu will be described in three ways; etymologically (as a word), epistemologically (as a form of knowledge) and ontologically (as a way of being).

Etymologically, Utu is a linguistic and textual reference from Kiswahili, the language of the Bantu tribe of the Swahili found at the coastal region of Kenya. Kiswahili is the regional lingua franca in East and Central Africa, 80% of words being Bantu and the rest being Arab, Indian and East Asian influences. Utu therefore is derived from Mtu (a person) and the essence or quality they possess is referred to as Utu.Footnote 3 The deliberate choice to use this geopolitical reference is because of its unifying potential within the region rather than the socio-cultural references of the Swahili people. It is also acknowledged that other similar frameworks such as Ubuntu (a Bantu term) have informed Utu because a considerable proportion of Kenyan Indigenous communities (KIC) are Bantu.Footnote 4

Epistemologically, Utu has a unique nature and scope of knowledge, validated through human experience, implying that it is more important to know than to know about. The validity of any knowledge claims or proposals rests on several factors, including how one arrives at knowledge or truth, what the aim of such validation is, who tells this truth and finally, who validates it. In the case of Utu, it is proposed that knowledge is arrived at through human experience – created, embedded, embodied and validated by those who participate in all knowledge-producing spaces (including the creative arts).Footnote 5 The aim of knowledge production in any given context may vary but in most African indigenous contexts, it was primarily utilitarian. Thus, education and knowledge production were a creative and dynamic process, woven into the living fabric of the people and generated within communities. According to Omolewa (2007), African Indigenous education is

based on practical common sense, on teachings and experience and … holistic – it cannot be compartmentalised and cannot be separated from the people who are involved in it because essentially, it is a way of life (p. 596).

Ontologically, and intricately linked to the above, Utu closely examines being and becoming human through doing, in this case, through participatory music making. This is because Utu is understood as a ‘lived’ form of knowledge. Thus, instead of asking what is Utu, this discussion asks, where is Utu? in the transitional and dynamic nature of life. This means that Utu encompasses all of life (the physical/non-physical/metaphysical, the tangible/intangible/abstract/conceptual, to mention a few). It implies that the indwelt element of Utu is present in its awakening of awareness and consciousness, in its provocation to positive action and transformation and in its sustenance of life in the past, present and future. In short, I argue that Utu endorses life as a recurrent and dynamic creative endeavour and the principles of relationality and connectivity are key indicators of creativity.

Music, using this framework, I argue, is identified as an aesthetic object and aesthetic experience. Hence, I broadly describe the aesthetic object as the concept, phenomenon or captured representation of a coherent entity of sound. This means that the primary medium of music is sound, ranging from the intangible subtle abstractions of sound (its unique properties and vibrations that lend to all things audible), to tangible representations of the same (audio recordings, musical works, musical instruments, musical notation, and the like). Any captured representations of music are static forms of that music actualised during or after a musical happening. Therefore, within this framework, music aesthetic objects become a memory or archive for posterity. In other words, apart from being a present temporal existence, music can be captured as a representation (just as a photograph captures a given moment in time) of what happened or what can happen. The capture of the past (unlike the photograph analogy) proposes an emergent future through its potential for a repeat enactment, human or otherwise.

Using the same framework, music is seen as a social and cultural entity within which people encounter an aesthetic experience. The experience can be approached as a past and a present, the former suggesting its captured representational nature, and the latter as an active experience in a present temporal timebound existence.Footnote 6 In both cases, the happenings or events do not exist without some form of present human or nonhuman action. The human action is in the form of music making, thus music making is here defined, in the broadest sense, as the human actions that bring into reality the concept and captured representation of music (the aesthetic objects identified above).Footnote 7

In short, music making in the eyes of Utu is an aesthetic experience through human action that leads to an aesthetic object. The actions associated with music making have tended to be identified as performing and composing. To this list of actions, Small (1998) adds what he calls ‘musicking’, defined as ‘to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing’ (p. 9). Despite the comprehensive list, Small has not clearly indicated if actions such as ‘composing’ or ‘listening’, which can also be realised in the past or future, offer an alternative aesthetic to the present musical experience. The list also falls short of comprehensively identifying the roles of those involved in these actions (performers, listeners, spectators or creators) and how their action contributes to the aesthetic realised.

For this reason, what Thomas Turino (2009) identifies as ‘participatory performance’ provides a suitable description of music making for this discussion which includes not only the actions but the actors in music making. Participatory performance, according to Turino, is ‘…actively contributing to the sound and motion of a musical event through dancing, singing, clapping and playing musical instruments when each of these activities is considered integral to the performance’ (italics by author, p. 98). This will be the starting point of the working description of participatory music making in this chapter.

The Aesthetic of Life

The current understanding of aesthetics in Western thought, according to Elliott (1995), has been influenced by the enlightenment period in the eighteenth century. It is based on the aesthetic object, that ‘existed to be contemplated in a special way – with a “disinterested” or nonpractical and distanced attitude of aesthetic perception’ (p. 22). This understanding implies an aesthetic based on matters of beauty—its existence and people’s response to it in the form of music appreciation. Other scholars like Roger Scruton (1997) have moved away from this conception to highlight aesthetics as ‘an interest in appearances: its object is not in the underlying structure of things, but the revealed presence of the world – the world as it is encountered in our experience’ (p. 5). This is a fair argument that reflects the revealed aesthetic in life through aesthetic objects. It could, however, be argued that revelation of the presence of the world encompasses more than what is observable, measurable and tangible. Instead, it could embrace not only musical cultural artefacts and other intangible possibilities, but the process or entities/participants leading up to those aesthetic objects. All this suggests an alternative means of validating aesthetics.

The framework provided by Utu proposes a rupture through an ontological shift. It argues that music and music making is a creative and emergent process where dynamism and relationality within life is inextricably linked to music and the creative arts. Put differently, the aesthetics and music (and by extension other creative arts) are subservient to life, shaping and being shaped by life. Murungi (2011) recognised this relatedness in describing aesthetics as a human ontology, saying, ‘A human being is axiomatically an aesthetic being, thus, when we inquire into aesthetics we are inquiring into our being’ (p. 47). This points towards aesthetics defined and determined by life, an aesthetic of life, as opposed to an aesthetic in life. For this reason, music encounters through the eyes of Utu are not only a reflection of life but are, in fact, life (Nketia, 1984).

It is through the principles of relationality and connectivity that an aesthetic of life can be realised. Relationality here refers to belonging that is beyond kinship or similarity. It is based on the potential to form a link and share lived spaces. Creativity in music making processes therefore endorses belonging through the realisation, identification, awareness, affirmation, discovery and creation of relationships between entities and participants of the musical experience. This is because, as Senghor (1966) put it,

As far as African ontology is concerned, …there is no such thing as dead matter: every being, every thing – be it only a grain of sand – radiates a life force, a sort of wave-particle; and sages, priests, kings, doctors and artists all use it to help bring the universe to its fulfilment. (p. 49)

This was demonstrated in a participatory seminar on African ways of knowing at the University of Exeter.Footnote 8 Participants arrived in that music making space with great anticipation and curiosity about an area of knowledge that was unfamiliar to them. Their mere presence in that space validated their belongingness because of their potential to share themselves (their histories, skills and experience) and the music making space (with tangible and intangible aesthetic objects) available to them. The participants encountered an other in familiar and unfamiliar ways primarily using sound. Their immersion in the music making space was filled with questions, moving bodies, tactile experimentation with objects, and singing voices. Through their interactions with potential relationships and their shared experience, they were engaging in creative activity. At that moment, they related and connected with one another and with their environment by doing and being in life.

Their human action describes the other principle of Utu, connectivity. It is the link (operative word) that enables relationships to exist and enact for the transformation of the participants and entities present. This means that without the formation of links, they remain mere potentialities. Connections through participation and active interaction are strong indicators of the creative processes. However, connections need not occur between homogenous entities, nor at all moments or in all spaces. That is because not all connections are relevant to the music experience, since they align themselves with the purposes and socio-historical contexts within which they occur. This demonstrates how agency is an integral part of participating in life and thus a creative endeavour.

Coherence in the Music Making Space

The music making space described above is a complex and active educational space that holds diverse types and ways of knowing in coherent balance. The discussion now will focus on two nonmaterial and metaphysical entities, Affect and meaning, that help sustain stable coherence for creativity in the music aesthetic experience.Footnote 9

Affect

Through the eyes of Utu, Affect is an active, non-material and metaphysical participant in music and music making. For instance, in the earlier mentioned participatory seminar, the emotions displayed shifted at the start, from absolute terror at the prospect of holding an instrument, moving one’s body or singing competently before each other, to the laughter and smiles while moving in rhythm in a circle chanting a musical response to a call in a language they did not know. The presence of Affect within, without and in between their interactions and connections was easily recognisable because of their transformation. This is because of the propensity for Affect to be aroused within active musical engagement to be ‘known’ especially through embodiment. This process of relating, connecting and transforming is what affirms the humanity of the participants.

Affect as another participant in music making suggests that music making has less to do with the material or technical musical content and more to do with the facilitation of the dynamism of relatedness that creates new knowledge that accommodates human experience.Footnote 10 As an essential part of human engagement, Affect surfaces within, without and in between the entities and participants of a music encounter in embodied, intuitive and tacit ways. The surfacing of Affect, described by Ahmed (2014) as an experience of intensification that alerts our consciousness and attention, brings forth our sense of being, both individually and collectively. An awareness of Affect in this way opens new creative possibilities in music making encounters because as a participant it fulfils various roles, including,

  • facilitating the fluidity of connections in the negotiation of present and emergent realities. This maintains the flow of the musical encounter that enables risk taking and experimentation to find relevant connections within the musical space.

  • validating and reinforcing the sense of belonging of all entities and participants because it resides within, without and in between them to affirm their presence, and

  • fostering coherence made possible through active (as opposed to passive) subjective and embodied listening.

Therefore, the interactive and intersubjective engagement that affirms the other expressing I sense your humanity as you sense mine validates Affect as a significant marker of creativity within the musical aesthetic, and, by extension, the aesthetic of life.

Meaning

Another significant marker based on the framework of Utu of the musical aesthetic and the aesthetic of life is meaning, recognised within participatory music making as the formation of significance, purpose, relevance, truth and value. Thus, meaning making within musical encounters is a conversation that leads to emergent possibility through individual and collective understanding of both musical properties and their performance (actual, idealised, imagined or remembered). This suggests that just as life is emergent, meaning is emergent within music making encounters, and although they are sometimes unpredictable and ambiguous, they are nonetheless present, dynamic and fluid. In addition, the validity of meaning as another participant is made possible through the agency of the participants exercised at various stages of the musical encounter.

Meaning formation in most African music encounters, according to Nketia (1964), have a ‘close identification of music with African social life’ (p. 1). It suggests that life’s significance, purpose, relevance, truth and value inform and are informed by the musical properties, the socio-historical context of the music and the related epistemological and ontological underpinnings within that context. This validates meaning embedded in music making just as it is in all that encompasses life. This includes the social context, the other arts included in the music making encounter, the musical and non-musical properties employed and the human and nonhuman relationships.Footnote 11 Crucially therefore, Nketia proposes that investigations in meaning ‘must be regarded not as involving one statement but a plurality of statements’ (p. 5), a position recognised by this discussion, as will be discussed further in the implications on music and education momentarily.

During the symposium Have You Heard: Using Music as a Decolonising Tool run by the Music Research Network (a part of Creativity and Emergent Educational-Futures Network, University of Exeter), in November 2022, participants were invited to an embodied music experience after sharing their stories of colonisation and decolonisation.Footnote 12 The participants brought with them creative potential in various forms, including in the form of stored embodied knowledge of the past, as well as in the anticipation for the aesthetic experience and musical space that was about to be opened. Participation was key for transformation. The sudden gasps of empathy or unconcealed anger at some of the disturbing stories given made visceral the interconnectedness of the participants through Affect and meaning as these stories emerged. This visceral engagement evoked the enactment of relationships and connections to become a collective creative and active human encounter through the music making that was later shared.

Participants in that musical space embodied and were being embodied by the narratives and presence of all the other entities and participants (physical/nonphysical, tangible/intangible). Through that music making, each had the opportunity to have agency to address their colonial and decolonial past in the present thereby sensing their humanity as they connected to the agency and sense of humanity of others. They were interrelated and interconnected because of the safety a musical space can provide to address their past in the present, subsequently transforming themselves to the emergence of new knowledge. This emergent knowledge, both individual and collective, became a new future reality with the potential to influence coming musical encounters. For this reason, the validation of new knowledge in music and music making is most effectively done by the participants of the encounter. The spectator or observer perceives, but the participants embody and know.

What this experience exemplifies is how Affect and meaning within the framework of Utu are recognised as valid participants of a musical encounter, evoked through human action. When present in the music aesthetic experience, they play significant roles in facilitating spaces for interaction and transformation by sustaining coherence between entities and participants of the encounter. These roles promote creative engagement through the provision of agency for expression, access to interaction and connection and a space for risk taking and negotiation. In other words, in participatory music and music making, Affect and meaning are the fuel through which creativity can flourish.

Summary

The aesthetic of life affirmed through the eyes of Utu as regards music and music making is indicated as follows. Firstly, it resides and is revealed in the acknowledgement of already existing relationships between entities of the music making encounter. These entities encompass all that is found in life, including cultural histories and objects, individual and collective memories as well as the Affective memories from the past, to form an ever-expanding body of existing knowledge. Secondly, these entities and participants are potentialities that lie in anticipation and expectation of evocation but must participate in the present by connecting and interacting in relevant and stable ways for coherent flow through embodiment. In other words, connections are made possible through deliberate engagement of all relevant entities, made more effective through the evocation of Affect and interaction of meaning. This is an ever-emergent space, made so because of the unpredictability and complexity of the interactions and connections and results in the emergence of new memories, new meanings and new relationships between entities. Thirdly, the aesthetic also lies in the validation and affirmation of the outcomes of the music encounter by the participants of that encounter. This follows on from the epistemological and ontological positioning of Utu that emphasises the validity of human experience in the creation, production and subsequent storage of knowledge.

Implications for Music and Education

The theoretical framework provided by Utu through the principles of relationality and connectivity posits a ruption in knowledge systems and structures. For instance, the growing discourse on decolonisation has tended to concentrate on decolonising content and practice of music education. Much as this is of value, wider considerations, especially the plurality of theorisations and presentations of colonisation and decolonisation within different contexts, provide an alternative perspective. Alternative realities have alternative experiences which require alternative methods of addressing the consequences of colonisation. The diversity that comes from this plurality will ensure relevant practical and holistic engagement in dealing with decolonisation in different contexts. For instance, this plurality can provide a better understanding of the relatedness and connectedness of both the colonised and coloniser, as Guillermo Rosabal-Cotto (2019) suggests, especially when both simultaneously exist within the same entity or participant. This consideration can be applied to music education, education or other contexts of knowledge creation and production. It can do so in the following ways.

Firstly, if the aesthetic within music and music making is an aesthetic of life, then it implies that music education is more than the acquisition mechanistic and technical skills. Instead, it encompasses the holistic development of the individual—their physical, cognitive, psychological, emotional and spiritual being. Therefore, much as musical skill (playing of instruments, composing, singing and dancing) play a significant role in the coherence in a musical encounter, there is more to the encounter than its technical components. Understanding and being aware of the belongingness of each entity and participant grants each the agency to encounter the other. Without this awareness and engagement with other relationships between music and life, including the music encounter, no meaningful transformation can take place, thus no meaningful education can take place.

This suggests that the axiological position of music and the creative arts in contemporary education needs reconsideration in favour of further integrating them into other disciplines and primarily to life. Doing so opens new possibilities of discovering and creating new knowledge that is relevant to the given time and context. It will also undermine the colonial agenda in education through limiting educational encounters (including music and music making) to mechanistic and technical parameters, reliant on behavioural change. Specifically, it will endorse a decolonising agenda that leads to holistic changes in ways of being. This problematises the ‘Africanisation’ project that many postcolonial African nations seem to endorse, by challenging cosmetic changes such as changes of curricular content without change of ways of thinking (or vice versa). At best they are tokenistic gestures or a recolonial trajectory, both of which are not sufficiently decolonial.

Secondly, active participation in the unique and temporal musical spaces affords agency to interrogate and critically understand the realities and experiences of the participants, which in turn allows them to further participate in life. Musical spaces are vibrant spaces of conversation between entities and participants of life, interacting, negotiating and experimenting to make relevant and stable connections. The more visceral the aesthetic experience, the more creative and transformational for the participants. Therefore, a shift in focus from the aesthetic object to the aesthetic experience within music making encounters creates a more open, transient and inclusive space for all, regardless of their ‘musical abilities’. This implies that through the eyes of Utu, every human being is essentially artistic, (which includes being musical), something McAllester (1985) noted while staying with the Venda people in South Africa, saying, ‘Every musician/human is also a composer, as a matter of course, and is also a dancer/choreographer’ (p. 1). Put differently, in the continuum between basic musical competence and musical mastery, all have equitable opportunity for holistic education that includes the holistic development of the individual and the collective. This means that being musical is synonymous to being a good human being, with good character, knowledge of cultural history and a willingness to participate in life with others. Providing access to music and music making empowers and educates, just as participating in life does.

Thirdly, because of this humanising element is understood to reside in music and music making as well as in relation with other creative arts, there is an imperative to affirm the role the creative arts play in education. The example they set regarding knowledge creation, production and storage suggests a rupture regarding educational futures that embraces holistic knowing with knowing about. Thus, mechanistic and technical approaches to music education that focus on the objectification can be complimented in relation and connection with the powerful yet often understated influence of tacit aesthetic experience.

Fourthly, relating and connecting is a creative process which can be disrupting just as it can be empowering, meaning that participating in life is sometimes a disruptive affair. Relationships and connections must always be negotiated for their relevance to the aesthetic experience because life and education is built on this kind of creative endeavour. The incorporation of other participants such as Affect and meaning broaden, drive and hold aesthetic experiences in stable coherence, qualities that are essential for any emergent educational processes. Transformation is therefore most effective when it is holistic, intuitive and creative. The holistic and lifelong imperative of education is sustained by the participation of all entities and participants of life. Utu affirms this agency for all to create, engage, act, transform and store knowledge because it is a human prerogative to participate in life and therefore a similar prerogative to educate and be educated. It does not have to be limited to specific types of knowledge or ways of being but instead should embrace the diversity and plurality of life. If, like music and music making, education aims at expanding the plurality of knowing and being, and framing educational futures as an aesthetic of life, then there may be a more sustainable way to approach an emergent and unpredictable future.

Conclusion

This chapter has explored how Utu can create a theoretical ruption in the understanding of participatory music making, creative endeavours and education. Through this framework a methodological ruption is proposed using two of the principles of Utu, relationality and connectivity. Here, the belongingness of various entities and participants (including Affect and meaning) and their roles in the music making space was highlighted because of the potential for connection they possess, and the links for interaction that can be forged within the musical encounter. Further still a knowledge rupture is proposed, where music and music making are considered creative spaces of knowledge production by enacting the relationship between the past, present and emergent future. A creative ruption is proposed with reference to aesthetics through the eyes of Utu, where aesthetics is intricately linked to our experiences of life and therefore is an aesthetic of life as opposed to an aesthetic in life. In other words, life’s dynamism and emergence are an ontological basis for aesthetics and creativity. The implications of these ruptions open new possibilities for music and music making in the contemporary African context which continue to be influenced by Western hegemonic approaches in creativity and education. It provides an avenue to reconsider the mechanistic and technical frameworks that have defined contemporary education by offering a framework that endorses knowing and knowing about for holistic development. Crucially, however, these ruptions offer an opportunity to promote creative living because just like life, education is a negotiation between the relationships and connections for an emergent future. It is therefore an imperative to endorse the right to participating in life and that includes participating in and through music and music making.