Music is a vital and vibrant part of Mandinka culture, even from its origins in the early Manding empire. Music is used as a tool for communication, for telling and remembering stories, recording events and history, marking celebrations and for communicating messages between people.Because music is such an important part of Mandinka culture, traditionally the role of the musician has been assigned to particular family lines. These musicians are called Jalis (or griots), and the word jali, which means musician-hood, comes from the Mandinka word for ‘blood’. Jalis often sing and play kora, balafon or ngoni. They command great respect in Mandinka society and are thought to have deep spiritual, social and political power. If you are getting married or have had an a disagreement with your neighbour, or need to get a message to your local politician, you would call upon the jali to sing and play for your cause.

Mandinka Music

© Detta Danford & Love Music Festival

Balafon lesson Me having a Kora lesson

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Hardwood Neck

Sound Hole

Hand Posts

Calabash GourdIron Ring

Anchor Strings

Horizontal Brace

Notched Bridge

Playing Strings

Leather Tuning Rings

The Kora

The 21 strings of the kora are divided into two parallel planes. 11 played by the left hand and 10 played by the right hand. To play a scale you alternately pluck the left and right strings. In this way you can play very fast passages typical of much kora music. By moving the leather rings up or down the kora, the player can put the instrument into one of four main traditional tunings. Each one of these tunings is a heptatonic (7 note) scale. These are roughly equivalent to the major scale, minor scale, lydian scale and blues scale in Western music. Kora music can often sound complicated and highly ornamented. In fact it is often built from the same simple building blocks as much of the music we listen to. At the foundation there will be a strong bass-line, after this the kora player will add an accompaniment, over which they can add the traditional tune or melody. Finally comes the improvisation, which can be extremely virtuosic and can often feature personal stylistic traits. The wonderful and amazing thing about the kora and the jalis is that they achieve all of this with just the fi rst fi ngers and thumbs of their two hands!To see a demonstration of these different parts of the music by Toumani Diabate, check out:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8luhdxS2KuM Some of the greatest kora players alive today are Toumani Diabate (Mali) and his cousin Mamadou Diabate (Mali), Mamadou Susso (The Gambia) and Mory Kante (Guinea). Which one of these players is performing at Sonic Harmonic?

The kora is one of the most greatly loved and highly respected

instruments in Mandinka society. It is a 21 string harp-like instrument,

played with the thumb and fi rst fi ngers.Each string is attached to a long beam,

which in turn is attached to a large calabash or gourd covered in cow hide.

The strings are attached to the top of the beam with circular strips of leather which

can be moved up or down the beam to change the tuning of the kora.

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Listening and comparingActivity 1. Musical Building Blocks

Class / groups Any age

45 - 60 minsPaper & pens / pencils• Computers, internet access • & speakers / headphonesFilm: • Kora

To help with this project, have a look at my short fi lm exploring the building blocks of kora music, made with Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate and cellist Natasha Zielazinski.

As mentioned above, much kora music is built from simple musical building blocks. 1. Bass-lines, accompanying parts, melodies and improvised solos. Listen to some of the music played by Mamadou on the Love Music Festival Jukebox. One good track to listen to for this is Toutou Diarra.Can you hear the different elements of the music he is playing? How does the music begin? Is it with the bass-line, the tune or with some improvisation?Listen out for the low bass-lines, the accompanying parts and the main tune he plays. Can you hear when he starts to improvise? What are his improvisations like? Does he play quickly or slowly? Can you hear any patterns in the music?

Compare Mamadou’s music to the music by Sväng and Eva Quartet. 2. Listen to Haidukka by Sväng, Bring the Cattle Out, Gano by Eva Quartet and Toutou Diarra by Mamadou.Can you hear the same musical building blocks being used?Do they use them in the same way? Is there always a bass-line and an accompaniment, a melody and a solo?Which part starts fi rst? Is it always the bass-line? If there are improvised solos when do they happen?

For secondary classesOnce you’ve listened to the tracks above, think a little bit more about their structure and the way they use musical building blocks. Choose one of these tracks and create a graphic score for it. How could you represent the different elements in the piece? How could you show the structure of what happens? You can be as creative and abstract as you like! If you can, take a picture of your graphic scores and upload them to our Glow sharing spaces.

Listen to some more tracks within the Sonic Harmonic section of the Love Music Festival 3. Jukebox and try to fi nd those which contain improvisation.Which song did you fi nd?Which instruments are improvising? Can you hear when they start to improvise? How can you tell they are improvising? What are their solos like? Which ones do you prefer?

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Using the Love Music Festival Map Mixer, look for the bank of kora loops. See if you can fi nd some that are tagged bass-line, some that are tagged accompaniment and some melody. Have a go at building your own kora piece using these simple loops. Think about how you might want your piece to start. When would you bring in the bass-line or an accompanying part? Would the melody happen by itself or would it be accompanied by another loop? Experiment with different combinations and numbers of loops. When you’re happy with your piece save it and play it to your class. Why not upload it to our Glow sharing space – you never know, it might fi nd it’s way onto the Jukebox on the Love Music Festival website!

Listening, arranging, composingActivity 2: Map Mixing the Kora

Individuals / small groupsAny age

20 - 40 minsMap Mixer software• Computers, internet access • & speakers / headphones

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A simple accompaniment part, like the one I also play on my fl ute later on in the fi lm and 2. which is notated below:

If you wanted to, you could try using the accompaniment and melody parts from the fi lm. The melody can be sung or played on an instrument. You could also add in the vocal part that Kadialy sings at the very end of the fi lm.If you feel ready to make up some new parts however, go for it! Try to keep any new accompaniment and melody parts simple and easy to play, as the more parts you add, the more complicated the music will get.Once you’ve composed your new parts, practice them until you are happy with them. As you are working in a group, each person should play a different part, or if you have enough people, you could have a couple of people on each part for extra support! Try to make sure each part is working well and practice any parts that need more help or maybe some extra players.Once you’ve got all the parts working together, decide together on a structure for your piece. Do you think you should start with the bass-line? What part should come in next? If anybody is feeling really confi dent, maybe you could even have an improvised solo section?

Listening, playing, composingActivity 3. Musical Building Blocks

Small groups of 3-6Confi dent secondary

60 mins

Class / personal instruments eg. keyboards, • tuned percussion, melody instrumentsComputers, internet access & speakers • Film: • Kora

To help with this project, have a look at my short fi lm exploring the building blocks of kora music, made with Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate and cellist Natasha Zielazinski.Have a look at the end of the fi lm, where Natasha and I sing and play Kadialy’s simple kora bass-line. See if you can sing the bass-line and clap the rhythm as I do on the fi lm. It is notated below:

In small groups, all have a go at playing or singing the bass-line from the fi lm. Keep repeating it until you can get it really together. Once you think you’ve got it, your task is to make up two other parts.

A simple melody part, like the one I play on my fl ute in the fi lm, which is notated below:1.

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Listening, research, writingActivity 4: Kora around the world

Individuals / small groupsAny age

60 - 90 minsPaper & pens / pencils• Computers, internet access • & speakers / headphones

Although the kora is a very traditional instrument, in recent years it has been used on pop, jazz and hip-hop records. Modern kora players, including Mamadou Diabate, are very interested in collaborating with different artists of all kinds from all over the world. Use the internet to fi nd and listen to the following tracks by various artists from around the world:

Hope• by BjorkSene• by Afrocelt Sound SystemMr Jones• by Talking Heads

If you can access MySpace, you can also try listening to tracks by Kora Jazz Trio: http://www.myspace.com/korajazztrio and Les Escrocs: http://www.mysoace.com/lesescrocsmalirap

Can you fi nd out a little bit about each artist? 1. Where do they come from and what sort of music do they play?

What instruments are playing in each track? 2. Can you hear the kora? How is it being used? What role does it play? What instruments are playing with it? What are the similarities and differences between the kora playing in this music and the music that Mamadou plays?

Do you like any of these tracks? 3. Which one is your favourite?

Choose one of the tracks and imagine it has just been released as a single. You are a 4. music journalist, and have been asked to write a review of the new release. How would you describe it to people who haven’t heard it and how would you rate it? Would you give it a favourable review?