Masai men mid dance step. Photo : Laura Morgan

A fundraiser is being held on 30 May 2011 by Testigo Africa to raise money for the people of Longido, Tanzania, who are in desperate need of a reliable well full of juicy, thirst quenching water .  The original plan was for me to sing to a video clip of the Masai singing and dancing in the desert, but when I looked at the clip I realized that this was going to be tricky.  The clip shows the tribe gathered in the desert, with everyone laughing, singing, screaming, talking, dancing… you get the picture.  There was nowhere to hang a melody, so I summoned all of my inner musical personalies to a meeting.  It was decided that the inner composer would use the sound footage as a palette from which to make an arrangement, the storyteller would be needed to make the piece cohesive; create a narrative from beginning to end and the singer (temperamental $%##@ diva) will be booked for a session, to create the counterpoint in the melody and to put a strong theme over the two distinct sections.

The inner editor, set to work scanning the 15 minutes of footage to find only a handful of samples that might have been useful.  In the end a couple of loops of the women’s singing and one of the men were threaded together.   To keep the communal feel, tribal chatter was layered under the track and between sections.

Luckily the women were singing pretty much in key the key of B flat, but the men were singing in another key altogether.  A bit off pitch shift and a wave of the magic wand and the men were now singing in the key of F.  While this was not ideal, it was a related key so it would have to work.  Then came the melody lines, which were drawn from the inspiration of the traditional chants.  However something was missing, the video footage was able to show the viewer how the chanting rose and fell from the women’s group to the men’s group in a spontaneous, ad hoc way.  This needed to be in the song, so a narrative was placed in the piece to bring it all together.  The inner editor was bought back in to pace the piece, adjusting the distance between the elements so that the timing created a seamless mood.

Masai children - Longido Tanzania. Photo - Laura Morgan

The piece was finished, however, there was one last thing to check.  With the vocal part, the inner singer was just making up sounds based on traditional chants… What if she was inadvertently singing something that might offend the Masai??  The piece was checked for meaning and it turns out that these chants have no set form, various tribes use them and they change with the seasons… and no, there were no Masai swear words in there.  No offense to anyone’s mother-in-law or hairstyle.

So here is a copy of the finished piece for you to listen to:

Masai At Dusk

More information about the dinner on 3oth May here.

Photos © Laura Morgan.  Reproduced with permission.  Many thanks to Testigo Africa and  Laura Morgan

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From left to right are: Rugi, Willitte, Abubabr, Riley Jordan, Abeba, Cha Cha and Fatmata.  Thanks guys and thanks to Abdoulie Sallah for all his support and costume supply.

Rugi

The 17 Day challenge is over and I do have two new songs but only one is near completion as a demo.  The application to perform at the Woodford folk festival was sent off but as they will look at my website for any demos it actually buys me a little bit more time.

Considering how long it can take me to write and arrange new material and with all the hiccups along the way, I’ll give myself a 8/10 for this one.

The second new song is a fun little quirky number… a bit like Bobby McFerrin meets Joni Mitchell.  I’ll be able to perform all the vocal parts with the loop machine at the next gig.  It’s interesting how even my fun numbers always come out a little bit dark.  The lyric of this one is cute but the character in the song is a little out of control.

Annie and I have continued to work on the video with a lovely outing driving around the hills shooting stock footage.  The poor darling is currently suffering from a cow fetish so every time we passed a field of cattle we had to stop so she could take photos.  Naturally I had to cow-tow to her wishes.

We made a stomach based decision to stop at the Kallista deli for coffee and my favourite macaroons.  Here is a picture of Annie as she rises over a cappuccino.

Annie Watkins - Coffee surprize...

I hope to have the new tunes up a listen for those people on the mailing list soon…. you know… soon as in Riley soon…..

A report from the Department of excuses:

Please select the appropriate excuse for not making sufficient progress in the 17 day challenge from the following:
1.  The dog ate my homework
2.  There was an all-night marathon of ‘Greenacres’ on the telly.
3.  It was sunny outside and the garden called me like a wanton siren in the night.
4.  Crikey you’ve got to eat!!

PS:  Progress is slow due to the unexpected roadworks in my life.  I still reckon I can get one song finished because it’s nearly there.

On the good side, the actual application to perform at the Woodford folk Festival has been sent, so the primary mission is accomplished.

The whole process has fired me up to get a bit of work out….huzzah!!

Day 9:

Spent the afternoon at Annie’s working through the storyboard for the video for Wailing Wall.  We explored a number of effects that might be used in the video including the Ken Burns technique.  Annie is quite knowledgeable about the Ken Burns technique and I was regaled with an in-depth explanation.  See the picture below:

Annie Watkins has extensive knowledge of the 'Ken Burns Effect'

Day 10:
The application form is complete.  Now I need to finish these two songs.  But first, I need food in the cupboard, then in my stomach and clean clothing.

Later:

It’s 8:30 PM and I’ve just finished with the shopping, the cleaning and the laundry.  Day 10 ka-put-nick!!!

Download a form as long as the arm of a person with incredibly long arms.  (sip sip) Print off form and add something a little stronger to chai…

HHmmm, describe your act…  Blah,blah, blah (is fantagalistic a word??)  blah blah blah.  Maybe it’s the chai kicking in but I’m starting to enjoy this..I’ve been meaning to work on this (artist description) stuff for my web site and this gets the job well and truly done (sip sip gulp)

Later:
Well, that wasn’t quite the ‘root canal’ experience as I thought it might be.  I’ve nutted out the descriptions for the performances and a workshop – which will be a kitchen garden self-sufficiency workshop – under the ‘environmental workshop’ category.  (I know this sounds counter-intuitive for a music festival, but Woodford is a number of huge festivals within the one – including art, writing and even a fully dedicated Childrens Festival)

The rest of the application is all academic now, boring details…

Ooops, look at the time, I’m off to Annies to talk video stuff.   More soon…