Participation in community musical engagements and learning of Adungu music in Awach, Gulu district, Uganda

Abstract

Community participation has for long been documented as one of the major ways through which musical practices and knowledge are transferred from one generation to another by supporting effective learning of a practice that members of a society deem meaningful. The purpose of the study was to find out the role that community participation plays in promoting learning of the adungu music among the Acholi people in Awach, Gulu District of Northern Uganda. The study was guided by social constructivist theory and an Africanist Ubuntu philosophy. The researcher used an ethnographic research design to gather data from the community of Awach through observation, focused group discussion, and in-depth key informant interviews and the use of photo and videos to during those interactions. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling techniques and data was analyzed by using thematic analysis of texts that led to emergence themes. Key research findings revealed that community members learn by engaging in adungu music at varying levels through playing, singing and through observation. Members’ attitude towards the culture played a key role in determining one’s rate of learning and aspect of the adungu culture that they learned. Adungu offered opportunities for self-expression and this was found to be crucial in the transmission and learning of this music. The study concluded that participation in community musical engagement is multidimensional and that participation has a profound effect on community’s ability to learn this music. The study recommended the need to create various opportunities for the culture to be performed so that members of the community can participate in those contexts, and cultivate positive attitude towards their culture as members of the community actively participate in those musical engagements, which will subsequently increase their ability to learn adungu music