Author(s)

Johnson Akpakpan

Department of Music, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.

This paper sought to outline flaws inherent in indigenous liturgical music compositions in the Catholic Diocese of Ikot Ekpene. Recently, there has been a proliferation of indigenous liturgical Catholic songs for the various parts of the Mass by “untrained composers” in the Diocese. Due to the level of music training, the composers of most of these songs are always composed with no reference to both Western and African music theories. For this study, three indigenous compositions were collected, transcribed into staff notation and analysed. It was observed that all these compositions were in solfa-notation, a less accurate mode of notating music. The works under study had flaws ranging from notational, melodic, harmonic, metrical, modal and textual errors. However, if the choirmasters and organists who incidentally double as composers of most indigenous songs used in the Diocese are given basic training in music theory, the standard of their works would improve.

Liturgy, Church Music, Standardization, Music Composition

Akpakpan, J. (2018) Toward Standardizing Indigenous Liturgical Music Compositions in Catholic Diocese of Ikot Ekpene, Nigeria. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6, 57-68. doi: 10.4236/jss.2018.65005.