ARTS

Composers

Making music in Africa

Giles Swayne describes the pleasure of writing music in the heart of Ghana

our late lamented Leaderene so rightly remarked, it's a funny old world. That a composer of serious (but not Really Useful) music should exchange the com- forts and conveniences of a terraced house in Kensal Green for the rigours of rural Africa may seem surprising; yet it suits me perfectly.

But why Ghana? Most Europeans have difficulty finding it on the map. The answer is that my wife is Ghanaian. We moved here in 1991; three years later, we inhabit a rambling, red-tiled house near a village called Konkonuru in the Akwapim hills about 20 miles from Accra, and 1200 feet above sea-level. We have no electricity or running water, which sounds uncomfort- able and smelly, but isn't: in the rainy sea- son our roof catches water from the sky; at other times the Konkonuru ladies bring it on their heads from the village borehole thus earning some much-needed cash.

Electricity will come eventually, of course. Not that we miss it much: there is little need for labour-saving devices when we have hands to help us — hands, more- over, which are longing for work. Lighting is provided by gas-lamps and kerosene lanterns; cooking is done on gas and char- coal. We are now so expert at living with- out electricity that it will be almost an intrusion when it reaches us.

These primitive conditions have advan- tages, too. Not having television or video forces us to do things, rather than sit around pressing buttons. Couch-Potato Disease is an infectious and generally incurable condition, and I have little immu- nity to it.

But it was not to avoid the blandishments of television that I settled in Konkonuru. I love the place and the people; I also find it easier to think straight here. And since thinking straight is a pre-requisite of cre- ative activity, my work flourishes like the proverbial bay-tree. There is less noise, for a start. It is not physical noise that worries me, so much as spiritual clutter: city life gobbles up mental energy and brain-space as greedily as it does resources. I find it far easier to clear my mind for work in Konkonuru than I do in London.

I interrupt myself here to issue a warn- ing: the reader should not picture a seedy expatriate, purple-faced with spleen and local gin, slumped disconsolate and moist- lipped on a mouldering verandah and wait- ed on by barefoot, sullen natives. This is a romantic picture, I admit. Happily, it is far from the truth.

To start with, I spend part of the year in Britain, where I have people to see and work to do; so I am not cut off from the outside world or my profession. But even without trips to the Big White Smoke, life here is far from dull; sometimes it is so action-packed that I am forced to retreat to my study and shut it out. Konkonuru is a village of about five hun- dred souls: a cluster of mud houses, some rendered and painted, most not. It sits in a shallow basin on top of the Akwapim hills, surrounded by farmland (maize, cassava, yam, pineapples, and some vegetables). There is an old, mud-walled Methodist church, and a couple of holy-roller sects. A certain amount of 'speaking in tongues' goes on on Sundays; we can hear it from our house, a quarter of a mile from the vil- lage, and it sounds like a flock of rather indignant sheep.

Animist belief survives, thank heavens: there are fetish-priests and priestesses, and a separate cemetery for 'pagans'. The vil- lage is governed (after a fashion) by a chief and elders, who spend most of their time wrestling with family disputes. Since practi- cally everyone in the village is related, these are extremely frequent; squabbling and litigation are the most popular leisure activities. When we settled here, I started a small Trust to help the village. My friends loyally chipped in with donations, and we have set up scholarships for the village children, built and stocked a public library, and built a bar called Club Paradiso. This has become the focus of communal activity which consists principally of getting drunk, but also includes meetings, funerals, and such games as volleyball, draughts and ping-pong.

This may be all very worthy, but what has it to do with being a composer? The answer (corny though it may sound) is that writing music is a lonely, self-centred busi- ness, and that doing something, however small and local, to improve other people's lives makes me happier and therefore helps my work.

But there is more to life in Konkonuru than do-goodery. Like any rural communi- ty, it is a veritable hotbed of intrigue and gossip. I could cite the Case of the Black Pant (in the singular), the Case of the Sheep Poisoner (as yet unsolved), the Case of the Nymphomaniac Cook (subjudice), the Case of the Pepsodent Penis, and many others. In the somewhat unlikely event that The Spectator were to ask me to contribute a regular Konkonuru Life column, I would have no trouble filling it.

Furthermore, there is no shortage of `civilised' neighbours. There is James Moxon, for example, who was a colonial DC in the 1940s, and has lived here for over 50 years. He lives three miles away (at night we can see his lights twinkling, and envy him his electricity) and divides his time between Shropshire and Ghana.

Sitting at my desk on this bright blue, windy afternoon, drums chattering in the valley below, I feel almost anything is possi- ble here. Much though I love London and enjoy what it has to offer, I find it hard to live and work there all the year round: its material and cultural goodies have too high a price-tag. This is a very personal view, of course: some people thrive on city life. I do, too, for a short while; but I quickly suf- fer mental overload, as I do also in super- markets when confronted by 34 brands of soap — I end up paralysed by indecision, and go to bed unwashed.

Few can have failed to notice how happy people seem to be in countries where, according to the economic indicators, they ought to be miserable. If life is hard and short, it makes sense to squeeze as much fun out of it as possible. There is poverty here, certainly; but there is also a wonder- ful climate of laughter, and a relaxed atti- tude to life which is not found elsewhere. It soothes the mind, and makes the spirit sing; which is useful, if one writes music.