Round Three

Hello, friends.  I'm back in Mali for a third round of kora/Mandé music studies.  I'll be here for five months this time, studying mostly kora, but also n'goni and balafon with a variety of masters.  I'll also be attending (and possibly performing at?) the Festival sur le Niger, in Ségou.  In the meantime, I've been building my core repertoire of traditional Mandé songs, both as recordings and as songs I can actually play.  I've got field recordings of about 60 songs so far, and have probably another 15 or so through commercial recordings of other musicians.  I've also cross-referenced my field recordings against my commercially-recorded Mandé music library and grouped different recordings of the same song together.  My hope is that, by comparing different musicians' versions of the same song, I can arrive at some idea of the core song itself, i.e. its characteristic melody/ies, accompaniment pattern, and traditional lyrics.  This musical reference library is pretty much the only advantage I have on Malian Mandé musicians, most of whom have been playing kora since childhood!  Nothing like getting your tuckus kicked by a 16 year-old to keep you humble...

The first week of intensive kora playing is always the toughest, as you can tell!

Stay tuned for some audio next post.  Comments/questions/whatever: waraden.diabate [at] gmail.com