Status Report

The public school year is almost at and end, and the university final exam season is in its last week.  My travel schedule is nearly complete, though I still have to travel south on the Garden Route toward the Indian Ocean, make a day trip to Lesotho, and spend one last time in Johannesburg.  With Dennis' help, video and photo sessions will be finished in early December, leaving me mostly to ponder the entire collection of videos, photos, audio recordings, transcribed songs, field notes and transcribed interviews.  Graduate student Meaghan Dunham worked on song and interview transcriptions during her time here, using simple I-Movie editing to separate songs on video and Finale software.  

ASU Grad students Meaghan and Lee with UFS student and Musicon Teacher Tsolofelo

National choral competitions are coming up soon, offering me one final opportunity to record folk songs in languages with which I have had little interaction so far.  There are 11 official languages in this nation, and I've been successfully collecting songs and recording choirs singing in 9 of those languages so far.  The languages of Ndbele and Swati are still at large, and the reason is that most Ndbele speakers don't actually live in South Africa, except on the borders near Zimbabwe and Swati is a language from the neighboring nation of Swaziland, where I have not traveled.  Both of these languages are considered "Nguni" languages, meaning that their origins are the same as the Zulu and Xhosa.  I have utilized the services of several directors, who can speak English as well as several other languages, so my songs can be correctly translated and my research notes checked for accuracy.

Zionist Church in the Eastern Cape - Xhosa church members  - Sunday morning arrival

Inside the Zionist Church - Music Underway Immediately

I have spent some time in the past week pouring over dissertations, articles, books, and unpublished writings on the topic of freedom songs, folkloric songs and the development of choral music throughout the 20th century.  My sources need to be converted to electronic documents for further analysis, which requires conversion of paper to pdf files, not always the easiest task to accomplish.  Fortunately, I have had the resources of the most magical copy machine in the Music Department at the University of the Free State, as well as the graduate assistant Lee Roueche, to assist me in completing the conversion of all files.  Lee has archivist skills, which means she can read deep into library data bases to determine the availability and feasibility of accessing materials.  She has good investigative skills too, so when I hit a wall, I sometimes just ask her a question and she comes back to me an hour later, a day later, or a week later (whatever it takes) with an answer.

Evening drive to Grahamstown, Eastern Cape from Bloemfontein, Free State

I have spent hours listening to choirs sing, and then listening to recordings of those same choirs, some of which I did myself and some which I paid others to record.  Every room, and every township, and every choir, and every director is so different, that each experience has been new and challenging.  Sometimes opportunities creep up when I least expect it, and I have benefited greatly from having photographers traipse around with me on those occasions.  Other times, disappointing results follow long waits and exhausting or expensive travel.  But it is all worth it in the bigger picture sense that I have seen and heard singers and songs from the hearts of so many different communities and from so many viewpoints that I understand singing in a way I did not before.  People sing for many complex reasons and for no reason at all.  Sometimes when I am really trying to understand songs and singers, it turns out that people do things because they are fun or because they always do these things every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. or because without the music, they - like me  - would be lost souls.

Suzi listening at the Music Library of Rhodes University

So here's a fun saying that I have learned.  One says it when one has given instructions or explained how to accomplish something.  The expression is "....and Bob's your Uncle."  I think it may come from the British, and find it very funny.  There is no "Bob"  - it just means that everything has been explained, everything is easy as pie, and there's no need to further analyze anything.  So, all I have to do now is see the graduate students safely to their flights on Monday, pick up my husband on Wednesday, book the hotel on the Garden Route for the following week, attend the national choral competitions on the weekend, meet some Ndebele and Swati musicians there, clean out my office, schedule the final session in Johannesburg, do it, and fly home...........and BOB's MY UNCLE!  

Moving Around

Dinakangwedi Choir of St. Mark's Catholic Church, Bloemfontein

The songs are starting to sound very familiar, as I have visited some of the same choirs, though not always in the same location.  As they move around to compete and participate in festivals, I also try to cross paths with them as I’m moving around to meet other musicians and scholars.  Sometimes, I’m working on an “ice-breaking” meeting with a director, while that same day, bringing the “goodbye and thanks” cake to a choir who may happen to be in the same general area.  My recent travels to Johannesburg were kept short, for reasons of practicality and therefore in one day, I interviewed a director, held a directors thank-you meeting, audio-recorded some sectional rehearsals for clarification of voice parts and attended a concert in the evening, where The University of Johannesburg Kingsway  choir held a short video session just prior to the concert for purposes of my research. 

The UJ Kingsway Campus Choir with African Music Specialist Sidumo Jacobs

Moving quickly around Johannesburg has become my modus operandi, due to the expenses of getting to Johannesburg, getting transportation in Johannesburg, staying overnight in Johannesburg and paying for professional services such as videographers and sometimes facility fees.  I love the UJ Kingsway Campus choir for the excellent sound and discipline, but I also love that they hold two rehearsals per week, with two directors who specialize in composed and folkloric songs respectively.   I usually take a day or so upon my return to level out, but in doing so this time, I absent-mindedly missed an appointment to visit a local school where a marimba ensemble was awaiting me.

Suzi with Renette Bower, UJ Kingsway Choirmaster

So, I can say that I am ready for a break.  The semester is over and I won’t be teaching any more classes, though I will be moderating 72 practical exams for three music education classes.  In addition to an instructor giving a practical exam, the South African university system requires a moderator to be present for practical exams (demonstrations, micro-teaching lessons, presentations, lab experiments, etc.) who verifies the activities and provides an external pair of eyes on the whole process. 

Speaking of students,  grad research assistants Meaghan and Lee have begun the process of integration into South African culture.  They have made friends quickly and mastered the art of getting around without a car quite well.  Their research is going well in both the public history and music areas.  I could not ask for better company or better research assistants.  I think that ASU can be very proud of their accomplishments as researchers, service learning interns and ambassadors for our university.  Meaghan has sung in two school performances and taught several classes in the past three weeks and Lee has interviewed elderly residents of the first township established in this area and photo -  documented many of our events.  Both students have uncovered deeper complexities about South African life than tourists and television viewers might see.  They are getting a well-deserved reward this weekend as they set out on their Safari in the Kruger National Park. 

Being a choir gyspy has continued to educate me on the nuances of musical traditions that we carry with us as we cross cultural and geographical boundaries.  I was in the township of Galeshewe, Kimberley, in 2001 as part of a teaching team called “The Kimberley Project” funded at that time out of the Eastman School of Music and Temple University.  Songs that I leaned in Galeshewe were performed with a different type of presentation flair in Johannesburg, and in some cases, varied texts as well.  Choirs that win in the indigenous folkloric categories of choral competitions may also be choirs who sing in the western art tradition with tempered scale degrees, balanced tone production and European expressive customs equally well.  But I’m starting to see some things that always look Sotho to me, or that always remind me of certain Zulu sounds or moves.

Suzi and Hannes getting the Video details organized

The most completely different experience of this past week was the Afrikaans folk music played and sung by members of a club of  “players” who gather at Sentraal Primary School each week.  Like the folk dancing club led by Mrs. Irene Broyles of Somerset, Kentucky where I grew up, this club gathers and sings weekly, and occasionally invites members of other clubs.  Their tradition is nearly one hundred years old and has ties to Swedish folk dancing and games.  So the Danish dances and singing games I learned in Denmark and in Berea, Kentucky have finally had some relevance in my travels here.  The dances are called games and the dancers/singers say that they are playing, not dancing.  Though the piano and other instruments play, each game is also sung with words.  This week I played the guitar along with the pianist - - not my forte, exactly, but it got me in the band and into the music.

My favorite singing game is called “Sukerboisse” – which means “Sugar Bush” or “Suga Bush” – referring in one sense to an indigenous shrub, but the song was picked up by some well known South Africans and Americans in the 1950s – among them Doris Day, who recorded the song on an album.  The music teachers and players here say that it comes from the Anglo-Boer war days, as do many of the documented Afrikaaner folk songs.  The games, however, do not.  It seems that Afrikaaner

At the end of the evening, (but before pudding if there is any), there is a sing-a-long, so you know I love this part.  Everyone links arms and rocks back and forth, one foot slightly forward, to keep the rhythm, while they sing old folk songs.  Like the black folkloric traditions, the songs include stories about long lost love, living far away, working hard, and protesting the powers that be.  I plan to bring back a couple of the games I can share at Christmas Country Dance School this year in Berea.

Just for fun, here's a teaser for the next blog - yep, that's Elene again in the photo, and this time she is kicking up her heels at the wedding of a cousin in the beautiful farm country of the Eastern Cape.  I'll describe the wedding in a sentence or two, but the reception deserves its own blog discussion, complete with new terminology and the meaning of fetching the baboon from behind the mountain!

Elene and her dance partner Aubrey at a family wedding