A synchronic study of semantics in selected Akan choral compositions in Ghana

In the performance traditions of choral music in Ghanaian community, understanding the text of the music is but one facet of extremely important aspects in performance. Unfortunately, some of the texts of some recent choral music compositions lack linguistic semantic representations. Performers are only mindful of the rhythm, melody and its associated harmony without even if the meaning of the song is not clear to them. Some of these songs lack meaning at the levels of sentential cohesion as well as the larger units of the text juxtaposed with the music. Through linguistic pragmatic theory, the authors attempt to unearth exegetically semantic illusions of five purposively sampled Akan choral music compositions by some Ghanaian composers and analyzed for their sensitivity to linguistic semantics. The paper concludes that linguistic semantics in choral music compositions is very important and deserves conscious and systematic considerations. It could be oblivious on the part of the composers but it is envisaged that the nature of this style of setting text to music is reduced significantly.

Key words: Choral music, linguistic pragmatics, Akan, texts, composition, semantics.