I was recently in Southern Mali, working with the Jo people and had the privilege of recording the instrument you see above. Underneath the wooden bars hang several gourds; these serve as resonators to amplify the sound of the instrument. Ingenious!

Here’s what it sounded like:

Great sound and a lovely instrument! However, it may come as a surprise to you if I tell you that this is by no means an indigenous instrument for the Jo people. What you see here is the kind of balafon played by the Bambara. The Jo have their own balafon, known as the saba, but for the time being, churches are not playing it – maybe one day…

Time for a lesson from one of our timeless pioneers in the field of ethnodoxology: Roberta King, who worked with the Nyarafolo (Senufo) in northern Cote d’Ivoire and successfully reclaimed their balafon. The local folks decided to use only their local percussion instruments because (she says):

“They claimed this provided a truly indigenous sound and an authentic rhythm that fit the message of their song [...] Such a sophisticated development came only after many years of working together toward worship songs that would speak meaningfully to them.”

Wow! So there’s hope for me yet then! Download and read Roberta’s full article here – it’s very interesting.

Yes, on Friday evening, there was a wedding celebration just down the road. I heard it from my house, so ventured out to investigate and ended up dancing with the ladies and playing one of the drums! (Some of those trees in the distance are in my garden!) Wehay, just like the old days in Benin, but without all the driving first!

Here are the musicians: two djembes, a small barrel drum and a HUGE double-headed barrel drum (played horizontally):

There was also a boy playing a pressure drum:

Anyway, I’m sure you’d rather hear what it sounded like than look at photos, so here are three short extracts for you:

Malian wedding singer (1)

Malian wedding singer (2)

Amazing djembe playing

Of course, a toubab can’t get his camera out in public without this happening:

(Hey, I’m sure that guy at the back is holding an ice-cream cornet…)

Also, remember to click here to read about the African funeral, which happened down my street in Benin.

Thanks for reading – that’s all for now.

Wow! This guy knows how to drum, eh? For my thesis, I had to transcribe the rhythms of various drumming ensembles in Benin – a real challenge, I can tell you! It’s not so much a case of what is the time signature of the piece? but more what time signature is each individual playing in and how on EARTH do these all fit together?! Western rhythmic notation falls short for such a task.

What’s the difference between transcription and notation? I know, but do you??? If you don’t, then take this course and find out!

Finally, here are a few more cool African drumming videos I have recorded over the years:

A Nawdm lady playing double drums in northern Togo

The amazing blind drummer in central Benin, playing home-made drums with great skill!

Ngangam musicians in north-eastern Togo, including a lady playing a kapok pod filled with stones.

The old bloke in central Togo, who puts one beater in his mouth, then removes it when he needs it.

Long-standing visitors to this blog will remember when I did a couple of ethnomusicology courses in Germany. Click here and here for a reminder of those. Over the past three weeks, I’ve been taking Module III of the ethno course, which is entitled:

GENERATIVE ANALYSIS OF NON-WESTERN MUSIC

Wow! There’s a mouthful! Basically, it means we’ve been learning how to analyse a foreign music system in terms of intervals, frequency of pitches etc. For this, we listened to music by the Urubu-Kaapor people of Brazil. We then had to transcribe the music – tricky when the intervals are unlikely to match those of a western scale. To help us do this, we used melograms, courtesy of speech analyser. Here’s what one looks like:

Our final task was to compose a song in the same style as the music we had analysed. Here’s a wee clip of one of the Urubu-Kaapor songs:

urubu-kaapor-bird-song.mp3

And here (just so you can have a laugh) is my attempt at replicating not only the melody and rhythmic patterns, but also the vocal quality:

robs-urubu-kaapor-song.mp3

Thanks to Neil for that recording. Unfortunately, my singing sounds more like Louis Armstrong than native Brazilian!!! Here are the motley crew who took the course this time, taken at pie night at the nearby Blue Flag pub:

Finally, here’s the info about the whole ethnomusicology course (I’ve now taken all three modules): ETP Ethnomusicology course. I would recommend anyone interested in the field of ethnomusicology to take these courses – really useful stuff.

Thanks for reading. I’m delighted – at last – to have something happen in the UK which is vaguely interesting to blog about. The only other choice would be the weather!!!

This is what the t-shirts looked like at the Dedication Ceremony of the Lokpa Bible, on 17th May 2008 in Gahounga, central Benin. The words are taken from Joshua 1:8, the whole of which says:

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.
Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

I couldn’t be there for the ceremony, but my colleague, Marianne, was there and took plenty of great photos and also this video of the ladies singing:

Great music for the occasion, which is almost bound to be the case in this part of the world. Here are some more musical photos. TL: some traditional floor-standing drums, TR: a lady playing metal castanets, BL: a gourd shaker (with shells, buttons or beads on a net around the outside) and BR:the pressure drum – ubiquitous in northern Benin and Togo – (also known as the talking drum or armpit drum), which changes pitch as you squeeze it:

I got hold of a copy of the Lokpa Bible the other day and had a look through.

Nice! Want to see what it looks like inside. Here you go, have a butchers:

(Extract from John 9 & 10. The picture refers to the Good Shepherd)

Thanks for reading!

This is Le Marché DantÉ”kpa, which means beside the water … and it is!
It is purportedly the largest covered market in the whole of West Africa. I can vouch for that; every time I go I take a similar route around the market but never quite see the same stalls!

It can be a tad dangerous at Dantɔkpa (remember this post), so take as few valuables as possible and be aware of people around you. Even taking photos can be risky, and sometimes annoys folk. That said, I managed to sneak some with a small camera recently, so here are a few of them:

(Thanks to Joanna McNeil for the loan of said camera.)

Oh, and the mystery meat I recently posted (here) was, in fact RAT! Yes, it’s quite a delicacy here, thought I’ve never tried it! So, that’s DantÉ”kpa – not quite the same as a market back home, but nonetheless a very rich and vibrant place to visit.

Now onto the world market thing…I was transcribing the words of a FÉ”n song used in a local church the other day, and it began like this:

Gleta we gbɛ fí nyi loooo
Axi jijɛ wɛ ayihɔn eee lɔ nyi
O mǐ die ma kǎ lɛ tuwun
O hwɛnu ɖe wɛ gǎn naxo do

Have a listen and follow along: fon-market-song-extract.mp3

Nice, eh? I love all her inflections and folky rubato. Here’s what it means: Life down here is like a field (looooo), the world is like a market which comes to life too. And so, we do not know at what moment the hour will chime.

It’s basically a statement on human mortality and that, as life begins, so it ends and we must be ready for when we meet our maker.
Bit different from Kendrick, don’t you think?!?

As I only arrived yesterday (Wednesday) I’ve not seen much of the place, but I like what I have seen. Above is the view of the Niger River, taken from where I’m staying. Here’s the same view during the day (surprisingly green for a semi-desert country in dry season):

I’m here teaching an ethnomusicology course to – somewhat bizarrely – a load of Cameroonians! There were a couple of Malians there too, mind. They’re altogether a great bunch of people – I think we’ll have lots of fun together as well as them learning stuff.

Walking round the streets of Bamako, my first reactions are as follows:

* Hardly anyone calls out to you or pesters you (much more frequent back home).
* Most of the drains are open ones, and quite rancid (yuck).
* It’s not as poor as I had expected (at least not in this quartier).
* There are NO zemidjans, but tonnes of bottle green bush taxis which circulate in the city, crammed with passengers.
* The houses have numbers and so do the streets here (what a novel idea!)
* It’s BOILING HOT here, but much drier. That said, we had a short thunder storm tonight.
* Lots more of those round hats on heads here.
* There seems to be music constantly blaring from several locations nearby. In fact, I had the somewhat surreal experience of hearing Jamie Cullum’s rendition of What a difference a day makes piped through my window earlier this evening…

In case you’re interested, here’s my appartment and bedroom here:

…and apart from that, this is about all I’ve seen of Bamako so far:

More news & photos soon, I hope!

Here’s a typical courtyard scene in this poor yet enchanting village:

Little was known about its music, so Rob was drafted in to find out more. It was intriguing to find out early on that, although the village only has a couple of thousand inhabitants, it is divided into six separate quartiers or neighbourhoods. I couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended, but all the locals knew. Each of these neighbourhoods was a separate ‘clan’, each of which settled in Bago from other parts of West Africa. The Bago-Koussountou language has therefore developed almost like a creole – as a blend of the languages of all six ethnic groups. In fact, this can be seen in the language’s classification, which is as follows:

Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, North, Gur, Central, Southern, Grusi, Eastern

Wow! What variety! So, the first job was to find out which instruments are used and also which song genres exist in the village. This included doing some observation and recording at night time, which was very atmospheric and lots of fun!

Here’s what I discovered:

bago-song-genres.doc

Following all this research, I recorded a good number of songs using the traditional styles. This was both for archiving purposes as well as to encourage the usage of traditional music. Cassettes have been made and folk are enjoying them.

Here are some of the Bago instruments: TL: The Gbale (or double cow bell), TR: the Sakasse – a gourd with shaky bits round the outside, BL: the Okoyise – two gourds floating in water and hit with sticks, and BR: the Lunga, also known as a talking drum or griot drum.

Finally, here are a couple of YouTube vids of the Bago folk digging their local beats:

1. Performing in the village square

2. A fascinating ladies’ circle dance involving pagnes.

3. A toothless old bloke does some impressive drumming with and without a stick.

It has, in fact, very little to do with sticking pins in dolls, but resembles African animistic religion in many ways, with a smattering of witchcraft thrown in too. I could post plenty of semi-disturbing pictures of sacrificial rituals with blood everywhere, but it might put you off your breakfast! In the photo below (taken before a ceremony started), the thing in the bottom left corner is the fetish and the cow to the right is enjoying the last moments of his life before….yes, you guessed it.

What do you think about voodoo? For the Brits reading this, there’s a programme on channel Four this Friday about Benin and Voodoo, which I’d encourage you to watch. Details here. (Video plus+: 918742)

Much of the research I am currently carrying out in southern Benin is linked to music of voodoo origin and how this is being ‘reclaimed’ for church use. Is this a good thing? Is there such a thing as an ‘evil’ rhythm or is it all in the words? What about the risk of syncretism? Some churches are finding these genres a useful tool in evangelism and in the demystification of the whole voodoo thing. Others will not touch it with a barge pole. What do you think? There’s a PhD in there somewhere!

Yes, in case you didn’t realize, all those people were holding copies of the New Testament in Moba for the first time ever. They had just bought them after the Dedication Ceremony in Dapaong, Togo, last Saturday (15th March). It was a great day – the ceremony kicked off at 8:00am, with some fab music and dancing. Here’s a short extract of some traditional Moba dancing, which I think you’ll enjoy:

As well as the music, there were a good number of speeches and then the New Testaments were given out to various folk. Also, the choir sung two of the songs composed with Rob at his workshop in January. Great to hear them again – and much improved too! Here’s the choir getting into the groove:

The two songs used were: (i) ‘Jaab’ based on 2 Timothy 3:16 and (ii) ‘Konbenn’ based on Romans 15:4.
Click to see a short video of each song on YouTube:
2 Tim 3:16 song on YouTube
Romans 15:4 song on YouTube

I made the 12 hour or so journey up to Dapaong – the northernmost town in Togo – for the occasion (on public transport/car sharing this time, to give the Land Rover a rest). A tiring trip, but worth every minute. Great to catch up with so many friends and colleagues too, but it was all over so quickly! Around 2000 people were at the ceremony and the weather was dry and slightly cloudy – so not too warm. It was a great occasion and LOTS of New Testaments were sold at the end.

This is the first time the Moba people have had the NT in their own language. Jan, Sylvia and the team have spent the last twelve years doing the translation, as well as many years preparation prior to that. Here’s what a section of a Moba NT looks like – see if you can spot Pentecost, Jesus, Galilee, Jerusalem and Mesopotamia. Oh, and Yendu means God, by the way.

There are also some pretty colour pictures in the Bibles, but I can’t show you everything in one post! Instead, here are some more pics from the dedication – TL: Praying over the New Testaments, TR: Jan and Sylvia (translators) giving a speech, BL: A griot singing and playing the traditional guitar and BR: A couple of traditional 3-holed flute players.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and Happy Easter!