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40England provides an incredibly interesting process of creating of a new song bySan women, when they work, like composers, on the rough melodic idea of “medicineman”. “The medicine men (and rarely women with reputed medicine powers) composethese songs. At least, they are the purveyors of these songs to the human level, for it isgod himself … who really gives the song to the medicine men, along with theconcomitant medicines, during the times of trance or of nocturnal dreams. After such atheophanous experience, the Medicine Man will bring back the song to the women of hiscommunity. It will in a basic form; for example, the following melody:Ex. 1. Basic melody composed by Medicine Man (England, 1967:61)…the women will rehearse the song, elaborating the basic melody according totheir usual polyphonic habits: they will insert tones, shorten and prolong rhythm values,etc, until they arrive at a melody (or melodies) that pleases them and the Medicine Mancomposer… Thereafter, in full performance of the song, the women might add extensionsin order to weld the many, many repetitions of the musical period into a tighter whole, orthey might make deletions that will change the emphasis or direction of the melodic lines(England, 1967:61).San traditional music (unlike the music of Central African Pygmies) also widelyuses their traditional instrument, the musical bow. Rock painting indicates the prehistoricuse of the hunting bows (Kirby, 1934:193).Among the other peoples of this region Xhosa and Zulu have been the mostprominent. “In communal musical events, choral singing is the most important form ofmusic… Singing is polyphonic and responsorial, with the divergence of parts occurringas phrases begin and end at different points” (Kaemmer, 1998:705-706).A form of overtone singing (umngqokolo) is known among Xhosa women andgirls (Dargie, 1991). “This technique involves singing a low fundamental tone whileshaping the mouth to emphasize different overtones. This kind of singing is said to soundsomewhat like a performance on the umrhubhe, a bow, played by scraping a string with astick. The style may have developed from a practice of small boys: they impale a beetleon a thorn, put it in their mouths, and isolate various overtones produced by the insect’sbuzzing” (Dargie, 1991:40-41. Cited from Kaemmer, 1998:706).An important feature of South African traditional music is the clear indication ofthe importance of rhythm in their music: “Many people in southern Africa define musicin terms of the presence of metered rhythm. This means that drumming alone isconsidered music, and chanting or speaking words is singing, so long as it is metrical.When the singing voice is used without rhythm, the resulting vocalization is not usuallyconsidered singing. Many of the groups have no word which would accurately be glossedas “music”; most of them have distinct words for singing, for playing an instrument, andfor dancing” (Kaemmer, 1998:701). Group singing tradition is very important amongother South African peoples (for example, Sotho people. See Kaemmer, 1998:707).Ethnomusicologists distinguish a specific “African tonal-harmonic belt” comprisingsouthern part of Zambia, most of Zimbabwe, and central Mozambique. Musical practiceshere are quite distinct from the rest of Africa (although shows similarities to the