Rampholo Molefhe
12 March 2008
opinion
How far should the displacement of the acoustic sound by electronic noise in music be allowed to proceed?
Batswana patiently await completion of the 'technikon' at Palapye - or wherever - in the hope that there shall be some redemption of the country's folk music and the instruments that make it.
The then Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, has donated a good chunk of land near the International Fair Grounds in Gaborone towards the establishment of an arts school driven by the Botswana Society of the Arts.
These institutions might contribute to the worldwide campaign for the preservation of the folk musics of the world by doing their part to rescue the art of piano tuning, perhaps side by side with the making and tuning of traditional instruments.
The Jamaicans boast a widely respected tradition of tuning of the steel drums. The musicians who tuned them were celebrity, perhaps equivalent of the carriers of oral tradition in West Africa known as the griots.
The South African Press Association reports that 'No one in South Africa has been trained to tone a piano for nearly a decade, and those tuners who are left number only about 50 and are between 50 and 70 years old.
"The South African Association of Professional Piano Tuners (SAAPT) is now concerned that unqualified people, sensing a demand for tuners, could damage the industry, and the piano nestling in the corner of your living room," the report says.
In Botswana, and this may very well be the situation in most of SADC, a piano tuner would make the rounds to do work, provided there were enough people wanting the service to justify the cost.
About five years ago it would have cost about P150 an hour to tune a piano.
According to the SAAPT, " the fees for piano services will rise radically, which might create an opportunity for unqualified technicians to eventually ruin the profession".
They might even ruin the hearing of the Botswana musicians, most of whom have taken to the electronic ' keyboards' which serve as a guide for the rest of the commercial bands that occupy the nightclubs and the institutional organizations at the BDF, police and prisons.
Many of them tire from continual bashing by untrained 'roadies' who know very little about the effects of uncaring handling of sensitive tunable instruments such as pianos and guitars.
The tuning of the bands, many of them captured in recording studios, stray away from 'concert' pitch wreaking havoc on the tonality of the reed instruments which must adjust to the tuning of the pianos and guitars.
Perhaps, Botswana students of music studying abroad should insist on formal training in tuning of the piano, and other acoustic instruments as part of the syllabus.
There should then be the possibility of the transfer of that skill to the traditional and folk music which should be highlighted in the contemplated music schools at the University of Botswana, BSA and the trade schools or 'technicons', in South African parlance.
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