It is generally noted that the music performed in Ghana is predominantly vocal. Amuah supports this notion when he says:

Choral music performance in Ghana has been exuberant and ubiquitous, particularly in Southern Ghana. From the rural communities through the districts, regions and the capital cities, churches and schools, work places and the radio stations, Ghana is full of choral music performances. There   are   as   many   church  choirs  as  well as youth, institutional and industrial choirs who are engaged in the performance of the choral musical genre (Amuah, 2014, p.58)[nkr1] .

This is seen in the popular, traditional and art musical forms where the meaning of the texts provide not only the social and cultural well-being of the performers but also the spiritual and the emotional satisfaction of the meaning of the text assigned to the musical sound. We are using the word “performers” to refer to the actual  performers of the song as well as the audience who consequently join in the performance of choral music, be it art, popular or traditional. As Euba (2001, p.15) concedes, “an audience in the strict sense seldom exists since all people congregating at a performance are potential performers and if they are completely prevented from joining the performance, it is usually because of lack of knowledge of the repertoire. Although Euba refers this to the audience of traditional music, the same characteristics endue that of the choral music performance in Ghana.

When the performers understand the meaning of the text of the song, it enhances gratification because the efficacy of the impact of the song greatly lies in the meaning of the text used.

Nketiah (1974) has indicated that song texts are inspired by the importance of the song as an avenue for verbal communication, a medium for creative verbal expressions which can reflect both personal and social experiences. This is why most current composers in Ghana write their choral music mostly in language they are comfortable with, in order not to lose the semantic considerations of the text used.

It is worth stating that, some of the Akan choral compositions have been identified to have problems with the meaning of the text in terms of sentence cohesion, wrong usages of song personas and the context in which the narrative of the song is put.

Feld and Fox (1994) note that issues about music and language has received broad area of research by ethnomusicologists and anthropologists (Feld, 1974; Nattiez, 1990). Substantial musical linguistic and literally dissertations (Henrotte, 1988; Houghton, 1984; Oliva, 1977) indicate how this vast interdisciplinary literature links research in musicology, acoustics, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy, psychology and anthropology.

Feld and Fox point out that:

Ethnomusicological perspectives are increasing social, linking the structure and practice of musical performances and styles with music deep embeddedness in local and translocal forms of social imagination, activity and experience. These shifts parallel similar movements in linguistic anthropology that emphasize the social, prag-matic and emotional constitution of linguistic structures emerging in discourse, performance, textuality and poetics (Feld and Fox, 1994, p.25).

It is worth noting that interpretation of text used in choral music composition has not caught the attention of scholars in the field of theory and composition. This paper analyses and divulges some semantic illusions of five purposively selected choral compositions in the Akan language of Ghana. The paper proceeds as follows: A brief review of semantics and perspectives on meaning, the pragmatic theory, choral music and text, English translations of the selected works and their analysis of linguistic semantic illusions from Newlove Annan’s Nya mmre ma wo Nyame (Get  time  for  your  God),  and  ?y? Onyame (It is the Lord), Daniel Ocrans’s Dzin no ?som me bo (The name is precious to me), Oye (It is good) and Ayeyi Wura (Owner of praise) by James Varrick Armaah as well as Adom bi a m’anya (A grace I have ever had) by Kras Arthur. The final section presents conclusion and recommendation.

Semantics

Jackendoff  (1990) and Ndimele (1997) define semantics as the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse (termed texts, or narratives). Ndimele states that the word semantics (from French semantique) was “invented” by Michel Bréal in the 19th century. Linguistic semantics is the study of meaning that is used for understanding human expression through language.

According to Chukwuma (2012), scholars from different disciplines like philosophy, logic, anthropology, psychology and linguistics are interested in exploring the nature of meaning. He says that linguistics is different from these disciplines since it investigates meaning in a systematic and objective pattern. In the field of choral music as an art form, exploring the meaning of the text has not been very popular. As people’s experiences and world view change, so do the meanings they associate to word change. We agree with Chukwuma (2012) that meaning is a concept usually influenced by different factors. An utterance can be interpreted in diverse ways depending on the emotional disposition of the speaker at the time of making the utterance. As a result of this, the intended meaning of an utterance may be different from the meaning perceived by the receiver of the message. Text used in music is therefore very important to be studied to see the extent of flow of the language used and how well it is communicated to the performers. Jackendoff gives three perspectives on meaning as follows:

The first is Lexical Semantics, which discusses at the meanings of individual words. The second is Formal Semantics (or Compositional Semantics or Sentential Semantics). How those meanings combine to make meanings for individual sentences or utterances. The third is Discourse or Pragmatics where those meanings combine with each other and with other facts about various kinds of context to make meanings for a text or discourse.  The argument is made based on these perspectives.

The Linguistic Pragmatic Theory

Mey (1993) perceives pragmatics as subfield of linguistics which  studies  the  ways  in  which context contributes to

meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in- interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, socio-logy, linguistics and anthropology. Daejin (2002) explains Pragmatics to include studies on how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved.

Grimshaw (1990) and Williams (1981) are of the view that recent work in linguistic theory has stressed the important role that structured lexical representations can play in natural language while Bresnan (1982) examines the importance of semantic representations. The significance of lexical conceptual structure (LCS) has also been expounded by Jackendoff (1983) and Jackendoff and Levin (1988).Their ideas apply to the text of choral music because the inferred intent of the composer and the context involved in the composition are very crucial. Text juxtaposing the notes of choral music composition should therefore be meaningful and concern the relationship of sentences to the environment in which they occur.

Choral Music and Text

According to Randel (1986), choral is music written to be sung by chorus or choir with or without accompaniment. Choir or chorus represents body of singers who perform together either in unison or in parts, usually with more than one singer on a part. A body of church singers is a choir, a term also sometimes used for a secular chorus. Amuah (2012, p.69) also asserts that “choral music as we know it today is here to stay by virtue of the exertions of the missionaries with the support of our pioneer musicians in Ghana. Before the arrival of the missionaries whose contributions contained premises of choral music in Ghana, there were traditional choral musical styles such as Avihawo and Nnwonkor?”.Choral music therefore involves text that serves as communication to the performers and listeners.

According to Wade (1993), Ashok Ranade defines text as “a purposeful putting together of linguistic units with a view to narrate [sic] a story, state an idea or express an emotion”. He has the opinion that ‘texts’ are the words of genres of vocal music (Wade 1993, p.2). It is therefore important that the entire discourse in terms of the text of choral music composition is considered.

The texts used in choral music are very essential to every aspect and interaction in our everyday lives. We use it to inform the people around us of what we feel, what we desire, and even question or understand the world around us. We communicate effectively with the texts juxtaposing the sound in a multitude of situation.

Choral music can be considered as a language form because the text expresses the inner feeling, historical commentaries and perceptions towards the audience and then affects reality and delineates the expressive culture of a community, thus expression of oneself has always been influenced by the text (Sutherland-Addy, 1998; Sadoh, 2004).

The study made use of analysis which aims at giving personal understanding and views of the text used in choral compositions selected for the study. Five works of renowned Ghanaian composers were purposively selected and analyzed. Before the analysis, the texts in Akan language were translated to English. The main purpose was to examine some semantic illusions associated with them and how they can be reduced drastically.

The lyrics of this song are a consistent narrative to appreciate the Lord who has been, and is responsible for the well-being of humanity. It is a direct expression that places the narrator into the song world as the central subject telling the audience to express gratitude to God for he deserves it. Like Bailey Shea (2014) puts it “direct address is by far the most lyrical perspective […] but usually involves a hidden narrator, possibly in the mind of the song’s narrative subject, rather than a real, physical interlocutor”. The first section (lines 1-12) makes a complete sense in terms of sentential cohesion and the general meaning of the text. The composer was conscious with the semantic implication of the song, however, from line 13 -17 as indicated below has a sentential cohesion problem:

This choral piece is very popular in Ghana. One may ask, why is this song so popular with full participation and gratification of the performers? Like Nketiah (1974, p.32) puts it “the audience may shout in appreciation when something in the music strikes them”. It is the rhythmic interest of the word Oye that strikes the audience. Very simple and memorable that calls for participation. However Oye can be explained as referring to God (He is good) but in terms of the meaning, the use of Oye in the first line of the song does not pull out the understanding clearly. However, one can understand the term properly from the second line where the name, Yesu (Jesus) is mentioned. 

The linguistic representation of the above text is quite good. The theme of the song, “He is sharing” is well treated and comes out clearly. The narrative indicates a third person singular who has in stock some blessings of blissful water. The narration explains that this blissful water gives life and freedom. The environment treats the theme very well. We get to know that the third person singular is the father of the narrator. The persona then becomes a first person singular who also requests for some drops of the blissful water  to  fall  on  him/her. This song text is also a perfect example of sensitivity to semantic considerations.

Linguistic semantics in choral music compositions is very important and deserves scholarly attention. Manifestations of the patterns vary. In some cases, it is a sentential cohesion problem while  in others; it is  an  aspect  of  the lyrics alone and then the position of the song persona. It can be argued that the ordering of the lyrics would not matter much in terms of the overall meaning of the song but it is important that composers themselves understand the language structures of the lyrics they use in their compositions.

Our focus thus far has been primarily with the semantic implication of the text used in choral music composition by some composers in Ghana and their sensitivity to it. An indepth study of this exegesis would help provide a foundation for similar research on other genres, including popular music and other art forms in other Ghanaian languages. Like Frith (1996: 168) argues “the use of language in pop songs has much to do with establishing the communicative situation as with communicating. It is believed that this will offer a new approach to not only choral music compositions but other vocal forms of music.

In conclusion, the inherent semantic problems in the songs make it difficult to provide any clear, objective data about how many songs have problems with the positioning of song personas or clarifications with regard to the context of the composition and the perspective of sentential cohesion. It is envisaged that corpus studies on this topic would help form a necessary backdrop against which we could understand the particulars of any given song. In that case, patterns and characteristics of particular composer and his compositions can be noted. If there are discernible trends across the choral music of today, it can be established and then models of choral music composition can be developed. It is recommended that the texts of choral music should be logical in relation to other sentence structures within the context of the composition. The following model of choral music composition is just a guide to remind a composer who sits down to create a  choral work  for  performance.  The text is his means of ensuring full participation of his creation.

The first level is the music itself with it associated melody, rhythm and harmony (Figure 1). 

The second level is the text where semantic considerations should be systematically adhered to. The third level is how the music should be interpreted in terms of intensity of sound and speed. These are very important to consider in choral music composition. 

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.