Music Documentation and National Development in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the tripod of music, documentation and development. It discusses these three concepts, with a look at their meanings and relationships, while also predicting the expected outcomes of their union using Nigeria as a template. A historical timeline of developments in musical documentation across the epochs of Western classical music, African music and Nigerian music was attempted by the researcher, through profiling of important contributors, their collections and inventions. The recurring issues on the relevance and usefulness of documentation to contemporary musical practices and how it engenders development, was vital and pivotal to discussions as well as the results of the study. Library and archival sources, and other ethnographic techniques such as, observation and participants’ observation were used for collecting data. Findings from the study revealed that while development is multi-facetted in nature, diverse in interpretations, music adds social and cultural angles to it and serves as an important impetus for driving both economic and social development of the country. The result further revealed the plethora of problems bedeviling music documentation, scholarship and the music industry in general in Nigeria. Issues that border on poor foundation in requisite courses, finance, standardization of terminologies, brain drain, obsolete and lack of archival facilities for collecting materials, piracy and copyrights and others were identified as the bane of musical documentation in Nigeria. The study suggested that government should pay more attention to the arts, provide regular funds to boost the sector, build and maintain documentation facilities, encourage private participation in music documentation and preservation, create an enabling environment for the arts to thrive. The paper concluded that documenting and archiving music, musical instruments and musical practices will facilitate not only social development but cultural posterity.