Music is Culture, But is Technology?

Traditional Sierra Leonean music stresses the importance of physical, spiritual, and social interactions with the natural environment, which contradicts Western engineering principles of scalability and broad application. Sierra Leone knowledge is often passed down through generations to 'designated' people who are thought to have a special link with their ancestors. Recognizing how different societies assess practitioners' qualifications to participate in performance or design may help Westerners understand how to connect with and learn from non-industrialized societies. This chapter looks at Sierra Leone's Indigenous music and engineering as cultural artifacts and examines their relationship to Western music and technology.