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Kenya: Tuning to the Soothing Instrumental Music
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
COLUMN
23 April 2008
Posted to the web 23 April 2008
Mwenda Wa Micheni
Simply put, the live performance by the 3 MA at the Alliance Francaise in Nairobi last weekend was a spellbinding affair.
The fingers soothed the strings to produce an easy sound- moving with the minds of the crowds in an amazing way.
Composed of three virtuosos of African stringed instruments, the performers offered rare musical calmness in a world that has increasingly became very noisy. It was a wonderfully relaxed and soothing concert.
Unlike the kicks and punches thrown by artists -the hip hop type- the soulful music maintained attention to the traditional lyres. It offered easy pleasure to the audience.
Recently born out of a performance meeting, 3MA brings together three artistes from the African continent. They included Ballake Sissoko whose music has been described as clear sparkling, full of spirit and warmth, but still very simple. The Malian Kora player is an internationally acclaimed artiste who won critical acclaim for his 2001 album Deli.
That album managed to top best world music CD lists all over the world. Sissoko brings relaxed grooves that sounds better than many works of contemporary poetry.
Driss el Maloumi, "the musical wizard, is a Moroccan Berber who played his Oriental lute. The man who has been credited as one of the best composers, innovators and performers of this complex instrument kept the crowd charged even when silence ruled. The lute from the Arab classical tradition, from Morocco.
Rajery was on the Valiha, a bamboo tube zither that's essentially a harp made from a large, hollowed piece of bamboo. Though not a native Malagasy instrument- it originated in Indonesia - it is often used by the country's musicians. Rajery magic on the instrument produced a cool sound.
His singing, especially in a satirical piece that ridicules African politicians was well calculated and meaningful.
The music was performed to an audience of over 500 people.
"It was an amazing concert that proves many Kenyans wrong," said Tabu Osusa, a music producer. "It is a matter of well arranged melodies played using traditional instruments that blend into each other to offer a very contemporary feel."
It had been pushed out of the stage, but after years of survival on the fringes, the live act is slowly finding its way back. With its return are support services- like music schools and improves sales of acoustic music instruments. This is both here and even abroad.
On Monday this week, the Chicago Tribune carried an interesting story that every music school would encourage every newspaper readers and investors in the arts to take a keen interest in.
Under the headline "Music schools seeing influx of funds", the story captured a growing popularity of schools at a time when digital technology has threatened to overturn fortunes for live performances. But the technological threat seems to be failing.
Listing the tens of music schools that have benefited from the charity funds, the story attributed the phenomena as a response to class need. "It's a competition for elite status in a hyper-competitive marketplace," says Douglas Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas in Austin. Apparently, the flowering of music education defies the commonly held notion that non-pop musical forms are doomed.
At home in Nairobi, music schools have been reporting a growing trend in the last three or so years. So have music shops that were sometimes back threatened with a closure.
At the Kenya Conservatoire of music, it's a man with a guitar hanging on his back this minute; a girl walking fast to catch a Piano class that is about to begin the next minute.
The place is busy as upward mobile Kenyan catches up with the trend- you are ahead of the game, so they say, if you can play an instrument or two.
More or less how it used to be in the nineties if you had a membership at a golf course.
"Kenyans are slowly beginning to appreciate the value of formal training in music," said Atigala Luvai, who is the director of Kenya Conservatoire of Music.
Interestingly, there is also a fast growing interest in live performances in this city.
Everyday, there are several live acts lined up in the more serious city restaurants to keep patrons awake.
This is as opposed to playbacks and bubble gum music whose taste seems to have disappeared. When Benin born Lionel Louke staged his Jazz act at the same Venue- Alliance- he wowed several.
His musical versatility, the man can change voices, chant and even call with his fingers on the strings, his effortless stage presence made non sense the hip hop singers who have considered themselves as cream of Kenyan music.
When Ba Cissoko, a group of performers from Benin arrived in Nairobi with a medley of traditional West African lyres and percussion, Nairobi loved the well choreographed beats of the instruments. Despite their incomprehensible words, their poetic music made a lot of sense.
"The secret is the engagement that a live performance offers," said Jackson Mutua a lover of live concerts. He adds: "Unlike playbacks, live performance goes beyond the words; at some points, the singer can stop and tease, he can even break the performance to comment.
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That is not possible in a performance where the performer is only miming as they many hip hop artistes do."
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