Rethinking the impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on the musical cultures and research approaches in Nigeria

Abstract

Music in Nigerian ethnic cultures is part of most communal events and functions. Music performance is central to virtually all traditional occasions and seasons. Music making and performances are often triggered by these cultural events and seasons. To harness the musical potentials of any ethnic community in Nigeria will mean to study the people’s music in relation to the cultural event it accompanies. However, the emergence and spread of Covid-19 in the globe and its first appearance in the Nigerian society hastily remodeled entire ways of life experiences especially, in communal events in which indigenous music performances practices thrive in. Covid-19 protocols also brought about new approaches to the study of indigenous musical practices in Nigeria. This paper is therefore, set to review multiple roles Covid-19 Pandemic played in the reshaping of Nigerian musical cultures and approaches to its research. Emphasis is on the cultural events and their accompanying music performance practices as traditionally scheduled in the lunar calendar of the Eastern region of Nigeria. This study also investigated the swift in mental shift on the approaches to research methodologies applied by some ethnomusicologists during and after Covid-19 pandemic. Ethnographic method was employed in harnessing data for this study. Hence, data collections from the field were primarily via in-depth interview, focus group discussion and observation methods. Finding suggests that Covid-19 pandemic and the follow-up social distancing policy in Nigeria brought about quick adjustment to the use of internet sources in place of field experience. In this, transfer of research materials via social media platforms became the trend for data collections which are often second hand information. Some clips are even edited before sending to the researcher. Consequently, the question on the reliability and sustainability of these methods for data collections and their resultant effect remain pertinent to ethnomusicological study. While social media sources are inevitable in this digital and internet age, it lacks the potentials to replace ethnographic study where information is elicited from body languages, life experiences and cultural expressions of the people.