My Reasons for Going

Music, at least in the pop world, seems to be entirely about familiarity. I spent a long summer working at the regional Clear Channel wing and this was my ultimate conclusion about the general consumption of music. By and large, the average music listener is not looking for content, emotional experience and not even quality; most are simply looking for some kind of semblance of "home". While I consider myself to be a fairly adventurous music listener, I am really no exception. So people often ask me, "Why Africa?" or "What do you see in this music?" The most simple answer I can give is that it sounds roughly familiar to me, it contains an essence that resonates with me.

I had a discussion with a friend recently about the concept of Originality. If one was asked what originality is, chances are they would say something about it being new or unique. Many people overlook the root of the word, Origin; the real strength of something Original is that it taps into the roots and beginnings of things. In my quest to create something creatively valid and Original I felt I had to be connected to the genesis of the music that I love. American music, as often noted,is essentially a fusion between European and African traditions and because European music history is the defacto music history and theory core of education I felt it was only natural to investigate African music. And as Americans tend to be cultural amnesiacs, I hoped that I could gain some connections to my own cultural traditions that have been lost along the way. I doubt I could ever embrace this culture and its traditions as my own because they clearly are not mine; rather I am looking to discover the essence of ritual and tradition itself through this specific culture because they express this in an ideal way.

When I first arrived at Berklee I became acquainted with a drummer named Perry Morris. He was somewhat of a child prodigy jazz drummer who, after achieving some degree of success as a jazz musician in high school, grew tired of the general attitude in the jazz world and began to explore Cuban music instead. The next tradition that he decided to follow was music of Santeria, sacred ceremonial drumming that has its origins in modern Nigeria with the Youruba people. Is played on a set of three Bata drums and the ceremony is composed as a sort of suite to the various gods of the relgion as an invitation for them to visit and "mount" those at the ceremony. For whatever reason, this music seemed to hold some kind of keys for me. It was intellectually stimulating to me because of the staggering intricacy of shifting polyrhythmic figures as well as spiritually appealing because of its mystical implications. Additionally, the melodies sounded very primal and bluesy to me, and felt strangely like "home." And to this day these are the same attractive qualities that I find in all the various West African musics.

As I begin to discover more of this music, certain themes seem to be emerging. One important one is the general conception of time and rhythm in a cyclical sense; events are seen as cycles within cycles within cycles etc. The western/european approach is almost always linear, certainly in a historical sense but also in a musical sense. The cyclical view of the world is by no means unique to west african cultures but is certainly a strong component of their folkloric traditions. Another important feature of the culture is the fact that all of the arts are in a sense joined eachother and none of them are viewed as having any real autonomy. The language and thus the oral history is embedded in the drumming patterns which themselves do not exist without the dances and all of these are contained within ritual . This unity of arts in relation to ritual is something seldom seen in conceporary American culture and something I believe we can all benefit from. Part of the reason for such a lack of ritual in our culture stems from the lack of a common mythology, which most west african cultures have in droves. Joseph Campbell says that "Ritual is an enactment of the myth" and thus through ritual we are merging and uniting with the active archetypes in the myth. Because all of the traditional arts are so intimately woven together, the stories are illustrated in in every facet of the ritual and the mythology survies.

Though these are my initial impressions and observations, it will be interesting to see if they are corroborated in my experience. In any event, I believe I feel I have found to some degree the reason that I feel so compelled to go. I felt the familiarity, not only because the music of my culture is a direct descendent of this music but also because this music does have true Originality. It is folk music of the highest degree: something with an unfathomable degree of order that grew not out of one composers mind but rather a cultural collective mind over generations. Tradition is often the more accurate expression of truth because it is sanctified by time itself; if something doesn't belong there it will get wrung out. And in fact, I believe that that only way to be truly Original and modern is by uncovering traditions that have been largely forgotten and overlooked and rejuvinating them. For whatever reason, these "lost" traditions will be strangely pertinent to the modern world because truth is still truth even if it has been forgotten.

All of this is to neglect mentioning that I am just looking to go and have a great time and see a completely different part of the world. I will hope to be posting pictures and reflections of the exprience whenever I get the oppertunity but I have no idea how often that will be.

Thanks to anyone that took all the time to read this