My first day in search of connecting with musicians.......
I went to the Dhow Countries Music Academy where I had already gone and introduced myself to the director. I think she was a bit dismissive. She told me that a lot of mzungus come to Zanzibar hoping to collaborate with musicians here. Most things never see the light of day. She asked if I was interested in working on music as a hobby. I said no, that I take it very seriously and that I have every intention of releasing the work produced here. Although she didn't specifically introduce me to anyone (although I asked her to), she did say that I was welcome to come and hang around to meet people.
So, that's what I did. There was a student group in the middle of a rehearsal for a concert they were to give later in the day. It was actually rather amusing and not at all what I had imagined I would hear. They were being conducted by 2 foreign instructors leading them in a samba! Samba played with violins, qanun, darabouka and the instructor playing cajon. Interesting......
After the rehearsal, I chatted with the director (who I'd met previously) and told her I'd like to meet the qanun player. He played a solo during the samba and it was totally clear that he knows his shit. I told her that and she said that he was the son of a famous musician (no longer alive) and that he also played darabouka, was a student at the academy and is a beginning darabouka teacher. I went and introduced myself to him. We agreed to meet today.
Today, I passed by again and chatted for 5 minutes or so. He seems interested. He is very quiet and it's a little hard to tell how he's reacting or how much he's understanding my english. I try and speak slowly and clearly.
He likes hip hop and bongo flava and we share the lament that popular music doesn't use much in the way of acoustic instruments. I was very clear in saying that I have no money to pay him. I proposed to give him my recording and production services in exchange for playing on my music. He has some experience recording with Bi Kidude in Norway and a few other things here and there. But, he's never done anything on his own. I asked him to think about it. I left him a CD of original material to get to know my work. Hopefully we can work something out.
I think part of the reason that there is not more of a connection between electronic based musics (hip hop and bongo flava specifically) in Zanzibar (and possibly Tanzania in general) is because there are very few recording studios and very few people with experience in production and working with these different elements. In Zanzibar there is only one recording studio - Heartbeat recording studios (you can find in on the internet - sorry, but I'm not online to get the link...maybe later). I hope to visit in the next few days.
Still in search of a suitable place to record/work/live......
I went to the Dhow Countries Music Academy where I had already gone and introduced myself to the director. I think she was a bit dismissive. She told me that a lot of mzungus come to Zanzibar hoping to collaborate with musicians here. Most things never see the light of day. She asked if I was interested in working on music as a hobby. I said no, that I take it very seriously and that I have every intention of releasing the work produced here. Although she didn't specifically introduce me to anyone (although I asked her to), she did say that I was welcome to come and hang around to meet people.
So, that's what I did. There was a student group in the middle of a rehearsal for a concert they were to give later in the day. It was actually rather amusing and not at all what I had imagined I would hear. They were being conducted by 2 foreign instructors leading them in a samba! Samba played with violins, qanun, darabouka and the instructor playing cajon. Interesting......
After the rehearsal, I chatted with the director (who I'd met previously) and told her I'd like to meet the qanun player. He played a solo during the samba and it was totally clear that he knows his shit. I told her that and she said that he was the son of a famous musician (no longer alive) and that he also played darabouka, was a student at the academy and is a beginning darabouka teacher. I went and introduced myself to him. We agreed to meet today.
Today, I passed by again and chatted for 5 minutes or so. He seems interested. He is very quiet and it's a little hard to tell how he's reacting or how much he's understanding my english. I try and speak slowly and clearly.
He likes hip hop and bongo flava and we share the lament that popular music doesn't use much in the way of acoustic instruments. I was very clear in saying that I have no money to pay him. I proposed to give him my recording and production services in exchange for playing on my music. He has some experience recording with Bi Kidude in Norway and a few other things here and there. But, he's never done anything on his own. I asked him to think about it. I left him a CD of original material to get to know my work. Hopefully we can work something out.
I think part of the reason that there is not more of a connection between electronic based musics (hip hop and bongo flava specifically) in Zanzibar (and possibly Tanzania in general) is because there are very few recording studios and very few people with experience in production and working with these different elements. In Zanzibar there is only one recording studio - Heartbeat recording studios (you can find in on the internet - sorry, but I'm not online to get the link...maybe later). I hope to visit in the next few days.
Still in search of a suitable place to record/work/live......
posted by Maga Bo at 1:38 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like a promising start. I can tell it's gonna be a very unique collaboration with great results.
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