Making The Kora

If you like this, visit http://koramusic.net for Great Gambian Griots kora duet videos - from the grandsons of Alhaji Bai Konteh! Making The Kora, multi-media documentary. The Kora is a traditional 21-stringed harp, built and played by the Mandinka people, who live in The Republic of The Gambia, Guinie Bissau, Senegal and Mali. Alhaji Bai Konte, a traditional Mandinka Griot (oral historian and musician), and was also a highly respected Maribout (spiritual leader and personal counselor), built my kora in Brikama, Gambia, in 1972 while my wife, Susan and I lived with his family learning their music and the traditional way of life for Griots. This documentary shows all of the steps of making a traditional Kora. The music and location sound show the variety of Kora music, including social settings where the music is heard, and the everyday sounds of life at that time. It takes great skill and patience to select the combination of parts to make a Kora. Each part needs to be suited to the strength, shape and sound characteristics of the other parts. My kora is exceptionally well made. It still sounds sweet after forty-seven years. African Arts magazine published my wife's article about how a Kora is made, featuring selected images from this documentary. Susan also produced a Teachers Guide, which includes abbreviated versions of some of the traditional stories that are recited along with songs played on the Kora. The instrument is truly a fascinatingly way to organize the most harp notes in the most accessible manner, balancing the forces of the strings to produce a four-octave range of sound. Additionally, the finger picking techniques involved are identical to styles used in American country music, in Piedmont finger-picking blues, in the cross-picking styles of Meryl Travis, Chet Atkins and Doc Watson, and the tonal melodic structures of Gospel and the improvisatory styles of Jazz. Many musicians and musicologists hear the Kora's musical styles are the direct antecedent of much of traditional American folk music. When the great American folk singer, Pete Seeger, socialized and made music with Alhaji Bai Konte both on and off stage, he was so struck by the similarities between Kora and the Banjo, that in a major Banjo book he was writing at the time, Pete declared that the Banjo is descended from the Kora. Although the Kora is a harp, while the Banjo uses a fretted finger board, and although the instruments are structurally different, their musical forms are intertwined. The instrument itself did not survive the Middle Passage across the Atlantic into the hell of slavery. Yet, the musical form did survived in the culture, emerginig in the banjo and guitar, solo and choral musical forms. Banjo picking and strumming styles are all found in Kora fingering techniques, and are most obvious in the playing of the Mandinka Kontingo, a small string instrument where the player fingers the strings, holding them against its round fretless neck. Kora musicians use all of modern banjo fingering techniques, including adding triplets which are characteristic of Scruggs style banjo playing. This documentary is so filled with visual and auditory information, that you can watch it repeatedly or pause it on every frame, to take in more of the detail of the physical and cultural culture, and also of detail of the actual making of the kora. Elizabeth Cotton, Taj Mahal, Richie Haves, Paul Winter, Tony Bird, David Amram, Kevin Roth and many other musicians who encountered Alhaji Bai Konte and the Kora found themselves quite at home with his music because of the historic connection.

Видео Making The Kora канала Marc Pevar