Anthologie de la musique Maure~Hodh Oriental

After several attempts to integrate in one way or another the European guitar into the Mauritanian musical system, 

the musicians have chosen to retain their traditional instruments.

At the summit of the hierarchy is  the lute Tidinit, reserved exclusively for male use, and for men who are professional musicians...

This type of instrument,known in the Sudanese Sahel with various names, may have existed already before the conquest of what is today Mauritania by the Hassan  Bedouin tribes.

Its Berber etymology leads one to think so.

The tidinit has at least four strings designated by the griots according to their function and position :

the two longest ones the  embart,are the playing or  melody strings.

the two shorter strings ,the tichchebbiten , are placed on each side of the playing strings and most often played open.

The harp Ardin ,whose precise origin is unknown, is an instrument indigenous to Mauritania,played exclusively by female griottes,and made from half a calabash covered with a goat or lamp skin top.the ardin also plays the role of a percussion instrument,whether the griotte plucks the strings with one hand and slaps the top of  the sounding board with the other or another woman marks the rhythm with her hands.If the ardin is sometimes solely  as a percussion,any other can equally assume this role,from the tbal,traditional timbal of the warrior chieftains,to almost any instrument found at hand.

All of the recordings presented here were realized in Eastern Hodh, where the mixture of populations is particularly remarkable. This anthology of Mauritanian music was made up of four records giving an
overall view of the major forms of musical expression of the griots.
Eastern Hodh is a region little explored on the musical level.

Bordered on the east by the Mali frontier and on the south by that of Senegal,
it is in permanent contact with extremely different ethnic groups:
Tuareg, Bambara,Sarakollé. Wolof, Peul - Tukulor.
Moreover all of this region of the East has been subject to the Ghana and Mali empires as well as that
of the Songhai.
lf the influence of the so calIed Sudanese zone (including the ethnic groups living south of the Sahara,
from Nigeria to Senegal) on Mauritanian music is not contested by anyone, the importance
attributed to it varies considerably. In Hodh they say that the griots  of the ancient tribe of Ulad Mbarek
learned their craft in Mali from the Bambara
griots from whom they brought back the "Black Way".
ln any case, the cross breedings are numerous,emancipated and former slaves were all black,
and certain musical terms would be of Sudanese origin wille others are Berber or Wolof.

from the notes

***

this double anthology of Mauritanian music from Ocora and 1980
contains in it's first 2 volumes that are presented here..

Volume 1 solely devoted to:

Chaykh Well Bacha  griot known as one of the best instrumentalists in Mauritania,

who plays several very ancient pieces, alternating them with more recent ones"

Volume 2 is rather a family affair,as in the first side

EI.·Hamal ment  Dendanni plays ardin and sings alone or with and her children

among them Mhammed on the tidinit and Sektu on the harp.recorded in her house in Nema

and on the second side her husband , excellent griot,Badi Well Hembare ,plays in the

 " Black way"

and presents very ancient pieces...recorded in their home too

Hodh Oriental vol.1

Hodh Oriental vol.2

The audience present at the time of the recordings, the musicians' friends and children 

all lovers of music, support the performers : we hear their long sighs of satisfaction, 

their exclamations, their ah!'s of enthusiasm which punctuate the most successful moments of each piece. 

This atmosphere is absolutely indispensable to the griot ; it stimulates him  and encourages him

 to surpass himself, the audience often being made up of connoisseurs.

Malamini Jobarteh & Dembo Konte-Jaliya

Jaliya

1985 to eternity

Seleshe Damessae and the devil's krar

Myths point to the Nile River area as the origin of the lyre.
Mercury is supposed to have devised the lyre when one day he found a dried -out tortoise
on the banks of the Nile.On the other hand ,historical documents attest that lyres
played a great role in Sumerian ceremonies before 2700 BC.
Egyptian paintings of 2000BC show Semitic nomads with lyres.

Kebede, Ashenafi, "The Bowl-Lyre of Northeast Africa. Krar: The Devil's Instrument"

Azmaris   the Ethiopian singer-musicians,like the European bards,or the West African djelis(griots).
may be male or female, are skilled at singing extemporized verses,
accompanying themselves on either the masenqo(one-stringed fiddle)or the krar.
The azmaris excel in the art of improvisation.A few centuries ago the azmaris performed religious functions at the courts of sovereigns.
They celebrated liturgies and officiated at certain ceremonies. Their repertoire gradually
became more secular. They began as praise-singers, then they sang love poetry and eventually began to invent
humorous or satirical verse in which they poked fun at their own protectors.
Love songs are still by far the most popular part of their repertoire.


The krar is a five-or six-stringed bowl-shaped lyre .
The instrument is tuned to a pentatonic scale. A modern krar may be amplified,
ans its five or six strings determine the available pitches. The instrument's tone depends on the musician's
playing technique: bowing, strumming or plucking. If plucked, krar will produce a soft tone.
Strumming, on the other hand, will yield a harmonious pulsation.
According to legends passed by word of mouth (yaf taric) from generation to generation,
the Krar is known as " the devil's instrument" (yeseyTan mesaria).

According to a few azmaris who still remember and tell the story,
the make of the begena, its measurements and construction with the techniques of playing it,
was miraculously re­vealed to Dawit mainly to serve in the musical praise of God,
in the adoration of His name as well as in the encouragement it rendered in poetical (Kinai)
religious meditations and prayers. The Krar, on the contrary, was an inferior instrument,
both in sound and resemblance to that of the begena, which man made inspired by seytan.
Thus, the Azmaries say, the Krar's function in music also remained inferior-only
for the adoration of feminine beauty, arousal of the sexual impulse, or praise of carnal love.

a future  hope from the past 
in a new superior  rip

tesfaye 

Alain Péters

Alain Péters

an

hommage 

gumboot guitar

the real  isicathulo  story ( in brief )

At the height of the migrant labour system and the oppressive apartheid pass laws, within the South African gold mines, laborers were forced to create their own forms of entertainment and communication. The strict laws at the time forbid the miners from talking to one another which led to them developing their own ‘Morse code’ inspired communication system of slapping their gumboots (Wellington boots), stomping their feet and rattling their chains, which restrained them to their work stations. From this came an entertainment, as the miners developed their percussive sounds and movements into a unique dance form and used it to entertain each other during their free time.
The racial separation of apartheid government meant that miners were separated from their families for long periods of time. The men would be taken chained into the mines and shackled at their cramped work stations in almost total darkness. They were forbidden to move around and punishment was enforced with physical abuse. Conditions were very poor; floors were often flooded with poor or non-existent drainage, which meant that they often suffered from skin ulcers, foot problems and consequently lost work time. The white bosses, rather than spend the money needed to properly drain the shafts, issued the workers with gumboots. Thus, the miner’s uniform was born; heavy black gumboots, jeans or overalls, bare chests (as temperatures would reach up to 40°C) and bandannas to absorb the eye-stinging sweat. To the miners, gumboot dancing was not only a method to communicate and entertain, but a method to survive.
It didn’t take long for the miners to attach lyrics to their newly found dance. The songs that were sung to go with the snappy movements dealt with working-class life − drinking, love, family and low wages. They would even sing about the cruel bosses and the despicable control they had over them. Quite amusingly the bosses were none the wiser as the workers sang in their own native languages. Even more amusing is that the mine bosses came to enjoy the deeply rhythmic resonances that mocked them and began to stage performances featuring the best of the gumboot dance troupes from the local mines. The dancers were used to entertain visitors and spread good PR by representing the company. From there it spread tribally and became popular throughout South Africa. Eventually it became a popular performance worldwide. By the end of apartheid it had evolved beyond communication into the fully fledged expressive art of the gumboot dance we know today.

from 

 Music previously played on Zulu musical bows was transferred in the new urban environment to the guitar and often concertina and violin too. the music was called maskanda. 

Musicians played for their own enjoyment, but they also joined miners’ gumboot dance teams to accompany this exhilarating genre. Often lacking in formal performance areas, most of this music-making traditionally takes place on the streets of single-sex hostel compounds. These recordings from 1988 and 1996 feature musicians and gumboot players who lived in one such hostel outside Durban.

“This is the real deal, street music played by people who work hard all day and play at night or on the weekend. The real roots of South Africa umbaquanga music are right here. There’s a variety of sound on Gumboot Guitar as far as instruments are concerned: on gumboot-dominated tunes, the guitar plays rhythmic chords with a very percussive attack. A pounding beat is also belted out by an accordion or concertina on most tunes…powerful.”Worlddiscoveries.net

the good recordings are by Janet Topp Fargion & Albert Nene...

gumboot guitar

Stimela

There is a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi 

there is a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe, 

There is a train that comes from Angola and Mozambique, 

From Lesotho, from Botswana, from Zwaziland, 

From all the hinterland of Southern and Central Africa. 

This train carries young and old, African men 

Who are conscripted to come and work on contract 

In the golden mineral mines of Johannesburg 

And its surrounding metropolis, sixteen hours or more a day 

For almost no pay. 

Deep, deep, deep down in the belly of the earth 

When they are digging and drilling that shiny mighty evasive stone, 

Or when they dish that mish mesh mush food 

into their iron plates with the iron shank. 

Or when they sit in their stinking, funky, filthy, 

Flea-ridden barracks and hostels. 

They think about the loved ones they may never see again 

Because they might have already been forcibly removed 

From where they last left them 

Or wantonly murdered in the dead of night 

By roving, marauding gangs of no particular origin, 

We are told. they think about their lands, their herds 

That were taken away from them 

With a gun, bomb, teargas and the cannon. 

And when they hear that Choo-Choo train 

They always curse, curse the coal train, 

The coal train that brought them to Johannesburg.

Hugh Masekela

Stimela


.

Djaba

the anthemic takamba 

in two versions :

unknown musicians from Gao -Djaba 

Super Onze de Gao -Djaba