Compositional Exoticism in Selected Nigerian Literary Vocal Music: Explicating the Figurative-Sound Idioms

Despite the fact that musical idioms are compositionally efficacious in arousing aural imageries and effects, especially in their enhancement of Nigerian literary music identity and nationalism, there is a dearth of scholarly studies on them. This paper, via score reading and sampling of relevant literary nuances, theoretically explicates the compositional utility and rationale of figurative-sounds in the vocal music of some eminent Nigerian composers. It argues that the idioms creatively permeates sonic-imagery, sonic-reference, and sonic-allusion of replicated phenomenon as Nigerian contemporary composers in their search for indigenous sonic materials stylistically indulge in utilizing figurative-sounds in their vocal music