The Significant Role Played by Long Social Connections and a Pleasant Interactive Experience Among Traditional Bapedi Music Practitioners

Abstract

In Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality, Limpopo Province in South Africa, music is a form of communication and plays a functional role in the Bapedi society. Indigenous Bapedi music is often collaborative and requires communal undertaking and coordinated cooperation. Music and dancing are social activities in which almost traditional Bapedi music practitioners participate. Rhythm and percussive sounds are highly emphasized in indigenous Bapedi music, while the melodies and rhythms of the music usually form the song texts. The main objective of this paper is to examine the creative domain of musical performance among different traditional Bapedi music practitioners, and to share some insight on how traditional Bapedi music practitioners organize, conceptualize, and experience various aspects of their daily lives. The main question the study addressed is: what motivates traditional Bapedi music practitioners to work together, and to struggle for common goals? To achieve the objectives of this study, contextual approach was employed, and data was collected through observations, interviews and video recordings of rehearsals and performances during social gatherings. Relevant sources to the context of this study in the form of published journal articles, book chapters, books and theses were also consulted to compare and complement data collected from the field research. Closer investigation has revealed that music is not alien or extraneous to the Bapedi people, but part of the Bapedi culture. It was concluded that in Bapedi society, traditional music groups were also formed voluntarily with the primary purpose of music performance and dancing, by invitation at ceremonial occasions.