New York: Week 1

I am currently in New York City. I arrived last week to begin studies with Famoro Dioubaté, a bala jeli from near Boke in the coastal region of Guinea. From this moment until the end of my time here (which I hope will be at least two months), this blog will continue to serve its original purpose (the documenting of my developing understanding of how best to learn to play the Mande xylophone), but will additionally serve as a report to my thesis supervisor in fulfillment of the requirements of a performance option course that I’ve undertaken as part of my degree coursework.

First, let me describe the situation here. I'm living right in Famoro's apartment: two bedrooms, a kind of open concept kitchen/ living room, and one bathroom. We are five in the place. Missia Saran Dioubaté (a well-known and very highly-respected jeli muso) shares a room with Famoro. Soba Kanté (also a wonderful singer) and another young man share the other bedroom. I throw down an air mattress and sleep in the living room. We mostly eat together--usually, the meals that Missia prepares in the evening time--and supplement meals with fruit, juice, and tea.

Sleeping and waking times tend to depend on the days' activities. Because I sleep in the living room, my schedule has to revolve around the comings and goings of the members of the household, but usually I manage around eight hours and am almost always the first one up. I use the early morning for transcribing or other writing work and begin practicing by around 9:30, quietly tapping the bala keys with my fingers. When I've seen that everyone is awake, I reach for the mallets. Famoro joins me once he's showered and gone for his morning coffee. If he has nothing else programmed, he'll stay with me for the better part of the afternoon. If he's busy (and heading out), I'll usually stay home to practice but will sometimes accompany him with whatever he's got to do. (So far, we've gone to a studio in Brooklyn where he spent a few hours mixing down some tracks for a new CD that Missia's recorded, to a wedding [where he performed several of the functions typical of a jeli in such a context--including playing the bala], and to an outdoor festival for a performance with his afro-fusion group, Kakande.)

Practicing sessions can never be as concentrated nor as free from distractions as they might be were I on my own, but I’d say I am averaging about four hours daily of hands-on work with the instrument. Taking transcribing and other bala-related activities into consideration, the average would be more like seven hours. The rest of my time is spent helping Famoro with his English language and computing skills, reading articles about Mande music, studying and practicing Maninka/ Bambara, and generally helping around the house.

We spent this whole week working on just one piece: Soli. Famoro has shown me several patterns (usually called "accompaniments" by the Guinean players) which I learn to play individually at first, eventually learning to move from one pattern to the next, partially improvising a transitional phrase of some kind. Once I’ve learned to play the accompaniment, I transcribe it using a combination of my own notation system and Jaliya, the notation and playback application created by Harald Loquenz. Famoro’s suggestion was to change pieces about every week, making selections according to my own needs and interests. I think next week, we will begin to work on Fasson.

In terms of the overarching question of "how one learns to play the Mande bala," I think the most important development has come in the form of a confirmation of the validity of the skills described in the list published in the February, 2010 "A blog?" entry. (Again, for the long-term I have an eye to develop a series of George Lawrence Stone-style exercises for the instrument--something like scales or rudiments which, if practiced daily would facilitate the acquisition of new material and offer the flexibility to explore a broader range of improvised musical expression.) (Note to self: In light of this confirmation, I wonder if a tweak to my notation system might not be to use the double-line square (which currently distinguishes left hand from right) to instead "draw lines" to follow or explore new melodic possibilities. [And RH/ LH could be distinguished some other way--as through capital and lower-case letters, for example.])

This week I was also reminded that for the readiest pattern-recognition, it can be helpful to think in terms of:

(a) There is what your left hand (LH) is doing, there is what your right hand (RH) is doing, AND there is what the two hands do together.

and (b) There are really only four main types of movement:

LH stays, RH moves "away" or "towards" ("in" or "out")
RH stays, LH moves "away" or "towards" ("in" or "out")
Parallel movement R or L
Hands separate/ hands come together