Sound, but no fury

We've been getting rather intensely into the music here, as you might expect from the subject of this program. Both the theoretical and practical parts are pretty major - we've had several great lectures on various aspects of Ghanain music, from the influence of the African diaspora to the significance of the church. This is all new to me - I haven't really taken any proper music courses of this sort before, so I'm learning the approach at the same time as the content. I feel like it's going well, though - everything makes a lot of sense, with the exception of a visual representation system I argued with the teacher about for a while today. But all in all, I'm learning a huge amount - far more than I can put into writing right now. In fact, I feel like I've learned more in the last week than in some of my courses at UCU last semester (gee, I wonder which?)

Perhaps more exciting has been the practical aspect. We've had a good deal of instruction by now, including both group and private classes. I've learned atenteben bamboo flute, kpanlogo, gome and djembe hand drums, as well as cowbell,and xylophone.Of course, the drums are my focus - right now, I'm focusing on kpanlogo and fumefume rhythms, but it'll be changing a bit as we move from place to place. My callouses are developing quite nicely. That and I'm going to learn how to make some of the drums if possible.

We've also been to a couple performances recently. Saturday was particularly crazy in this respect - we went to three neighbourhoods, each of which had a short performance for us. First was Nima, a mainly Muslim community, who gave us a Northern dance with marked similarities to Saharan and Senegalese styles when compared to most of what we've been hearing. Then was the Centre for National Culture, which contains a huge and wild cultural market; we saw a performance from a drummaker and puppeteer by the name of Ras Kobe, which was rather entertaining. Lastly, we went to an area called Russia for reasons unkown to me to see a ritual dance at a shrine of Tigari, a folk religion with an emphasis on anti-witchcraft ceremonies. This was probably the most elaborate of the performances till then, and was clearly spiritual in nature.

That night we ended up going to a big Ga funeral, marking the 6-year anniversary of a chief's son's funeral. It was a big spectacle, with a sound system, at least four dance groups, and us even being called up to perform to the audience\'s delight. That was probably the most exciting night so far. The next day we actually went to another funeral, which was rather different. It was in a poor neighbourhood, and put on by an Anlo-Ewe funereal society. It was thus far more ritualistic and somber, but still fascinating. We had a couple of performance-free days, but last night went to the Alliance Francaise (how colonial!) for a really great highlife show, which was a good time.

There will be lots more to say soon, I'm sure. Till Later, S.