Beyond the Classroom: Sub-Saharan Africa
1) I really enjoyed one of the first videos we watched that showed men playing drums and dancers went out into the street and danced to their drumming. I wanted to find some more about this and I found a groups called "Wona Womalan." This groups is a West African drum and dance ensemble and in this video we see things that are traditionally unusual. Typically men are drummers but interestingly enough we see the women dancers also playing the drums. One thing that did remain a constant though was the call and response form from the male drummer and one of the female dancers. Many of the performers were described as extremely talented and have studied in America as well as schools in Africa. They perform at many different venues and want to bring these styles to people who might have not heard it before. https://www.nextdayflyers.com/blog/customer-spotlight-wona-womalan-west-african-drum-dance-ensemble/
2) The drums of Africa also peaked my interest and when I looked into them I found the log drum. This drum is from the forest region of West Africa and is played in a set of 3 with three people playing. Each drum is tuned to a different pitch and they have a soloist and a melody. This Howcast video really touches on how they are played and shows you the beauty in the instrument that is not as popular.
3) Lastly I wanted to look more in to the musicians of Graceland, specifically Ray Phiri. I found his song "Highland Drifter." This song sounds a lot like the music that we normally hear today. A ballad and something truly beautiful. While he is not the one playing guitar on this but rather singing he still is able to capture my heart in this through is vocals. Although it seems like the whole song will be a simple ballad that is common to my ears, we eventually get some syncopation closer to the end that was also common in African music and I think that as a fusion artist he did extremely well.
I loved your segment on Ray Phiri! I too wanted to do some research on the Graceland musicians but did not get the chance :( Thank you for including an example of his singing because it truly was a beautiful experience (plus I got to recognize other Graceland musicains in the video:).
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this blog! I loved going through this and I learned so much. I never knew about log drums before and there origin and watching the video really makes it easier to understand how they work as a instrument and its a lot more intricate than I thought they would be. I loved looking at Ray Phiri and how he is doing as a artist after Graceland and was really blown away by his talent as a musician!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great blog, Josh. I was really interested in what you had on the log drum. I've heard it used in many styles of music before but I've never actually seen one with my own eyes or even thought to look up what it was. It has a cool functionality to it. It's a lot more than just hitting a piece of wood. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThe drum was so interesting. Such a unique shape and I really like the sound it makes. I also really liked the song by Ray that you shared. He's got a nice voice and the song is definitely a nice fusion of the two genres.
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