The ultimate guide to understanding world music

I am inspired. I feel like sharing my inspiration with those of you who landed here one way or another. Follow me through out this guide, and I promise, you will learn something new today. I can't say what it is, because this post is weaved in such way to allow you to inspire yourself into a new level of perception, or at least, leave this page with one meaningful quote or three.

Take a break, you deserve it. Better even, turn off the lights, forget your name and let go of your ego for a while. Turn on a candle, open your mind and read with your speakers on, but not too loud, you want to hear the music within.

Understanding music is not about reading notes, it is not about your ability or disability to play an instrument. You make music all the time, and you encounter it in every second of your life. Understanding music is about "hearing" it resonate in your body and your mind. Catchy tones are not necessarily TV or Radio hits, it can be the pounding of a hammer in a workshop you pass by, the humming of cars at a cross road, the ticking of traffic light for the "hearing impaired".

And who is best to teach us about listening, than those who have "hearing disabilities". Let me start off with a very intelligent and charming lecture by a deaf percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, who will tell you all about "sound colors," and show you a different view on how you can enjoy the sounds of your life. You don't have to listen to the whole thing, it can be a bit long, so feel free to move on to the next passage whenever you feel comfortable enough to do so.



Evelyn has taught me a new way of understanding percussion - size does not matter - it doesn't matter how big your drum set is - it is what you do with what you have. Start tapping on glasses and mugs, on tables and the floor, once the tunes fit the rhythm, you have understood the very concept of making music.

Moving on.

This thread is about world music, which is not merely songs by different tongues and music of exotic instruments, but it is putting it all together, mixing it to deliver worldly messages beyond politics, economics, the entertainment industry copyrights - it is when culture becomes nature, and nature becomes a culture.

Now, I invite you to think of this last phrase for a while, before you click play on the next clip. The clip is a trailer for the documentary Baraka - one of the most articulate world music productions in history, despite that it features no narration.



One day I was watching a live performance of a French troubadour group at the French Cultural Center in Amman, Jordan. There were about 80 people sitting softly on their chairs as we watched the trio play music from the country roads of France. Then one child started coughing and then complaining in a soft voice, but was enough a distraction to many, including myself as I started to move in my own seat - the person sitting next to me told me:

- "Don't mind the baby, think of it as part of the performance." That line opened my "ears" into a whole new way of perceiving music - it is not a monologue, it is a dialogue between the performance and the audience, happening in our own minds.

Think about this for a while, before you move to the next clip. The next video is from another great world music production, "1 giant step", produced by members of the band Faithless - they traveled across the world with their recording equipment, looking for obscure musicians and un-heard-of philosophers to share their worldly views with us.

The clip is from the last chapter of this production and is entitled "Happy," so after going through all the contrasts of life and death, masculine and feminine, us and them, me and you, love and need, black and white, etc, they concurred that the very objective of music is happiness, it is the international language that unites us all.



After reading this post, please turn off your computer (and report back to me later) and just start listening to your life, to yourself.

And when you come back, please give me some feedback for this little bit of shameless self promotion, please check out my two new projects... one is a solo world music production, which you can find by clicking here... and the other one is a soul band, where am joined by a Frenchman, an Irishman, a New yorker and a lovely singer from the Swedish north to play wonderful soul classics to music lovers all over Stockholm. We are The Stockholm Deportees.

The story of my chinese name

(Shān lóng)

A stroll down memory lane reminded me of one glad moment, about 6 years ago, at the house of my long best buddy, half Taiwanese, half Jordanian, Khaled (I lee da). His mother and father decided that I have already earned the honor of having a Chinese (Mandarin) name of my own.

After debating, and analyzing my original name, they concurred that Shān lóng suits me best. It literally means "dragon mountain," and it apparently is a name of honor. This was followed by a ceremonial dinner to mark the occasion.

Not that I have ever had a Chinese heritage of any sorts, but I did spend more time at this Taiwanese family than at my own place... I learned how to play golf, the basics of Zen, Chinese writing and cuisine in Jordan...

Later on khaled and I spent an awful lot of time, under the influence of the green herb, meditating in the mountains and desert of the Southern part of Jordan. We had two wooden Kendo swords and we trained out in the wild the arts of the Samurai - which is Japanese, and which khaled learned from his Japanese girlfriend's family.

I cherish those memories a lot. That is why I keep the sword handy by the bed, and a Chinese ink and brush set at my desk.

I met Khaled and his family again on new years eve 2008. They had moved to Aqaba and established a fancy Chinese restaurant there called Formosa. Khaled arranged for a new years party at the "VIP" upper floor, just like he promise he would when we were kids at school. He became a chef after studying for it 3 years in Taipei.

One birthday of mine his present was in the form of two Chinese hotties stripping on my couch all under the influence of the magical pill. A real treat, I must say, and it has nothing to do with my Chinese name, but just a nice stroll down memory lane.

Till we meet again!

Sincerely,

Shan Long.

In loving memory of Denis Ocwich

Denis was a colleague of mine while we studied for the Global Journalism degree at Örebro University. He came from Uganda. Denis lived a very modest student life and was 100% focused on his career, which translated well after his graduation, as he was appointed a teacher at Makarere University in Kampala, Uganda and later a part time professorship at Rhodes University in South Africa.

Denis died suddenly of a multi-organ failure last week.

He was a gentleman beyond explanation, he respected himself a lot and everyone around him, and lived with much integrity. I was happy to visit him once and cook together with a third acquaintance (whom he had a bit of a crush on). And we also shared room for two nights out in the countryside, and one night on a boat en route to Finland. Denis loved his colleagues unconditionally, and he shall be forever in our thoughts.

This is the news item about his death, written in the Sunday Monitor of Uganda:

Mak don dies in South Africa

Peter Nyanzi

Kampala

Mr Denis Ocwich, an award winning journalist and lecturer at Makerere University, has died in South Africa. He was 35.
Mr Ocwich, who was in the second year of his PhD programme in Journalism at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, died of an undisclosed cause on Sunday after one week of illness.

In an email sent to his guardian on Monday, Prof. Gavin Staude, the warden of the Gavin Relly Postgraduate Village where he resided, said authorities at the Settlers Hospital declined to disclose the cause of death saying it was “confidential” and could only be told to family members.

“I had seen him during the last week when he said he was not feeling very well. I took him to the Rhodes Sanatorium and when I saw him the next day, he said he was feeling better,” reads Prof. Staude’s email in part.

Update: We just recieved news that Denis' body was laid to rest in his home town. Thanks to all who contributed financially and emotionally to make this possible! May he rest in peace...

When love and hate collide....

A candle burns for two empty retro chairs at a cafe between "home" and "work" to attract customers by the light and warmth of a burning fire on a cold Wednesday noon.

I kept saying to myself, I won't let it get to me this time. But on a Friday afternoon just before I closed the 27th-year-chapter of my life walking up the stair case to our apartment on the fifth floor because some idiot did not shut the door of the elevator so it won't go down to pick me up, I realized, it has gotten to me again.

I could see nothing but darkened clouds of thoughts replacing peoples auras in the street and all around me. I switched off, and turned on the TV, and saw so much shit , from slaughtered children to reports about a world system that privatizes profit and nationalizes loss. Armani suits keep walking like ice cubes. All in a 5 minute news bulletin.

A few rays of hope outside our window over an almost empty church on a rare sunny Sunday morning.

Sure, there's always light at the end of the tunnel, or in the far horizon, or the southern hemisphere, there's light somewhere and it is coming at the end of this vicious cycle of the ebb and flow of my mind swings. It is not too bad to get down with your feelings and thoughts, take a long pause to filter them, and be ready to ride on the high tide. At least I will comfort myself for now by doing so.

I know I am a perfectionist, an idealist, but so imperfect that only on the edge, I learn how to change, and I only change skins and hats then. But now I will consciously throw my cynicism like cards on a gambling table, I have nothing much to lose and maybe a little bit to gain., and it won't be a thicker layer of skin.

An unpeeled clementine spoiled on a church's graveyard.

I suppose I am not alone. I read concerned views of others all the time, and I can't help but think that we: writers, bloggers, journalists, Facebook status aficionados, and readers, have one thing in common: the headache associated with a general sense of frustration and fear of the unknown. We all bought the sense of apathy we sold to ourselves that we are incapable of changing ourselves or the world around our little shells and bubbles and impotent against the breeding of intolerant greed in the world. But even dead leaves become fertilizers for new life, everything becomes a holocaust for mother earth.

Slussen, a bridge network linking the old center of Stockholm with the bohemian district on which I am tired of sleeping to the sound of drunk disillusioned youngsters.

While in our concrete jungles we rush like robots from one tube to another, on one escalator to an elevator, eating plastic packed portions of microwavable food and giving our brains a TV break, and from time to time, a catchy commercial jingle will find its way to resonate on the walls of our intimate dream theaters as a suitable interval. It is time I stopped with the generalizations, and cut to the chase.

I do not like how I sound anymore.

I do not like how I live anymore.

I am mad as hell and won't take this anymore.

Flowers to Petra on her birthday (she took all the photos published on this post). I got a book for mine.

I do not want to smoke one more cigarette. I want to save up to buy a house. I quit ideology. I want to reset my values. I want to leave the cultured upper middle class and join the ranks of hard workers, even if I have to change directions. I am putting down my breaks. I will run every morning. I am going to record my own first album. I will no longer do any work for free, but will volunteer for the Red Cross to balance my new found, albeit a little late, capitalistic lust.

I may have done it all wrong, but this time I won't be starting from scratch again.

"There is no democracy"

Just when I do not find answers in academia, the media, or popular discourse, I turn to literature. From the 1976 award-winning film production "Network," I found one dialogue that sums up the thrust of my thoughts on our world today

I invite you to listen to every word, and report back to me, if you will, on how does this apply to our world and the little lives that we lead.