Do Re Mi

I have spent this week in choral rehearsals with Zulu choirs and in preparation for my university class, which begins tomorrow. I’ll be teaching second year Education majors a course in Arts and Culture for grades one through eleven. My part is called a “module” as a course usually implies an entire year in this four-term per year system. I rented a car, and have been learning my way around from the university to the township to Empangeni, the small town where I live. The choral rehearsals are community and church choir practices, and the University of Zululand Choral Society is the choir in which I will regularly sing while I’m here. We are hosting a choral festival in September, which will provide the opportunity for Dennis’ photo shoot and the videorecording for my book, as there will be choirs from near and far, singing in most of the 11 languages assembled in one place.

Tonic sol-fa is the notation of choice for music readers in Zululand. (By the way, Zululand is a municipality, something like a large county.) The system was invented by John Curwen – the same fellow responsible for the sol-feg hand signs that music teachers use. Black music education never included western notation until recently, and even now, tonic sol-fa is more used than western notation. If I’m speaking Greek to you, take a look at this example.

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/notes/solfa.html

Speaking and singing in a foreign language, and reading a new musical notation system and driving on the left side of the road has been challenging this week. I find myself exhausted at the end of the day, and don’t even ask me about the stick shift car in our very hilly area. It’s all fine, until I have to stop while going up a hill. What is that smell?

I took a field trip with a freshman Education Foundations class to the site of King Shaka’s grandfather’s grave. The site was two hours away from here, and the students sang the entire way. At the grave site, a small group of elders appeared in traditional Zulu garb and we were told that they were Shaka’s relatives. Being the white American professor, I was seated with the elders as they recounted the stories about Shaka’s mother and his being ostracized and shunned from the rest of the family as a child. A praise singer canted the heritage link from one generation to the next as the 80 of us and a hundred or so school children stood around watching and listening. The landscape was mountainous and the (stick shift) bus almost didn’t make it up some of the mountains. My interpreter Zama was quite impressed that I didn’t appear to be scared when we seemed to be slipping backwards down a hill with no guard rails or seat belts to protect us. I must admit, that what scared me was when the singing stopped, but once the students resumed their resounding and repetitive choruses, I went back to my picture taking.

Since classes have not started, I took a day off and made a pilgrimage to Durban to purchase some teaching materials (a guitar and accessories). I’m now the proud owner of a Cort guitar and can commence to singing and playing. If you are a guitarist and you are reading this, you probably know that I am not exactly adept at changing guitar strings, and all songs have to be placed in the keys of D or G for me to succeed at playing and singing at the same time, with reliance on the capo for the occasional in-between keys. So it was a minor bummer that I didn’t care for the strings that came on the guitar, especially since the terms “light gauge” and “medium-light” had to be substituted with “11” and “12” etc. - - what????? and also the store was out of capos. Who knew that guitar strings had numbers?

On Saturday, I attended a beautiful 25th wedding anniversary service at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Empangeni. We viewed a video of the wedding and the bridal party dancing down the aisle back in 1985, and a few dance scenes from the reception. Of course, there was a shot of the cattle that had been respectfully negotiated as well. I was pondering all that, when the bridal party appeared and danced down the aisle for real, just before the bride and groom did the same. It was a moving and musical 5 HOUR ceremony, complete with a mass and long speeches and everything. Offering was collected twice, which is an active part of church services around here. You dance down the aisle and put your money in the plate, or in this case, some people brought wedding gifts instead on the first round. Then the bridal party dances their way out at the end. We were all invited to the couple’s home for a delicious meal. At the time I left in the evening, the “after party” was just getting going.