THE GHANA CHRONICLES: The Secret Song—6/21/23

 

Aaron, the xylophone teacher, had to return to Accra to teach some University classes so I had two days alone with the classes. A good time to accent the Orff side of the Orff-Afrique marriage. And so I sent the group off individually to find their “secret song” on the xylophone. This activity—also the title of the film about my retirement— is a simple way to unleash our innate musicality, whether we’re a 4-year old or a professional musician. The premise is simple— a secret song awaits each of us in any instrument we encounter and all we have do is to try to find it through beginning to play and listening to what sounds promising. Because we are built to move towards structure and coherence, people of all ages never fail to find something that sounds musical, often astonishingly so. And today was no exception. 

 

After people came back and shared, I then taught a piece I learned from my other Ghanaian teacher, SK Kakraba Lobi. Here in one class were the two poles of music— creating music never-before-played from the inside out and learning music already formed from the outside in. And then the meeting point where one improvises within the given structure of a piece and makes it perpetually fresh and new. A quick summary of effective, engaging and dynamic music education.

Later that day was a lecture by Kofi about the extraordinary African continent, intended to be accompanied by his Powerpoint, but when the machine wouldn’t work, he was more than prepared to speak extemporaneously with his impressive breadth of knowledge, only minus the visuals of maps and such. I’ve known this man for some 20 years and still can’t find the bottom of his genius. He is the living embodiment of a far-ranging intellect armed with a breathtaking knowledge ranging from the geography, history and diversity of an entire continent to how to make local palm wine, a dancing body, virtuosic drummer’s hands and a passionate, warm and loving heart. If I went to the Universities where he teaches, I would never miss a class.

That night was a high-level adult group performing the Warrior’s Dance the Nunya kids performed the night before. One of the signs of increased familiarity with a music/dance genre is the ability to distinguish between okay/good/ spectacular performance and as good as the Nunya kids were, I could feel the next level— or many levels up— of this group. 

Later that night, with a keyboard and guitars plugged in and a drumset, I got to jam with some of the jazz folks attending the course and once again, after feeling like I was in kindergarten in the midst of the Ewe drumming, it felt good to be in more home territory with its own complexity, virtuosity and beauty. Like the Ghanaian xylophone tradition, jazz only begins to live and breathe after you’ve learned all the notes of the song and begin to make them come alive in your own improvisations.

 

And so passed another day of music, magic and miracles at the White Dove Hotel in Dzodze, Ghana.