10/01/2004 01:01:00 PM|||Brian Fending|||

I'm studying with Ghanaian Master Xylophonist Bernard Woma again, and BOY do my fingers hurt. I did a little thesis on performance practice and aural tradition for this instrument (gyil) in grad school, but haven't really studied it to learn more songs since.

I can really bash on that thing, I tell you. The result, unfortunately, is the shedding of some skin between my first and middle fingers on both hands. So I bash in a lesson, heal for a couple of days, and start to transcribe. By day five I can practice what my Western mind abstracted. I hope to change that by keeping up with the instrument since my teacher is now so nearby for a few years.

I'll be posting more on this. If you're interested in learning some of the accompaniment parts so I can practice, let me know! We'd have a lot of room in which to play at the new house, and some backyard action for another month or so. (Well, maybe not THAT long. It is Hamburg, after all. :))

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