January 23, 2006
So it's one more free gift from the Middle East to the West: the astrolabe, the zero, and now we learn, the safari. Alert reader and ethnomusicologist Atesh Sonneborna informs me that "the Swahili word 'safari' is an Arabic word meaning 'travel,' derived from the trilateral root S-F-R best represented in its verb form, safara, 'to travel.' "
Could our Arabic benefactors have guessed it would lead to cramming large numbers of chubby, pale folks into Land Rovers to gawk at mild-mannered animals going about their daily routines? Or, for that matter, to my own outlandish travels, my safari?
Hoja Charles and his kadete. — Bennett Konesni photo
Stroking my unshaven face and wondering how best to segue into an informative description of the kadete fiddle, I am reminded that another alert reader, Carl Larson, sent me a message informing me that Gillette has once again upped the ante in the razor-blade battle. As I always feared they would, they're now doing FIVE.
Blades that is. Five (5) blades.
Maybe the marketing onslaught has begun already at home, but it hasn't started here, and hearing the news I am aghast, amazed, and afraid for my face.
So imagine the shock for players of the local single-string kadete when they discovered that my fiddle has four strings! No Cold War progression through two and three, just BAM ... four strings. ("And they even make 'em with five ..." he remarked casually.)
The Igunga Village kadete team prepares a rice paddy.
— Bennett Konesni photo
It's the same here as I imagine it is with the razor. Some are shocked and awed, others curious just to try it. Most struggle with all of the "extra" strings, just as I struggle with the minimalism of the kadate. They notice the funny shape of my instrument and the fact that it is all wood, with no resonant lizard skin face to be found. Theirs is like a small drum with a two foot neck sticking out of the side. The body is about the size and shape of a large baking powder tin, and a lizard skin is stretched across the top to give extra power to the voice. The three-braid wire string is stretched tight and pins a simple wooden bridge tightly against the lizard skin. The 18-inch bow is made of a local sapling and uses a stem of sisal as "hair," split and rubbed into soft strands.
It is as difficult for me to get used to the different scale and feeling of a sisal bow on lumpy wire as it is for them to get used to the enormity of my 30-inch horse-hair bow. But the encounter between two worlds has been illuminating, and it has given me, a New England fiddle beginner, a window into the mind of a Sukuma kadate master.
His name is Hoja Charles and he is from Igunga village, a modest collection of thatched houses on the flats between the second and third hills to the south. He has been playing for 17 of his 26 years, and when he comes over for lessons he's so good that the neighbors all turn out for their afternoon show. Much dancing and general revelry ensues—but I don't break out the mango branches for a good thwomping. The party is distracting, but a fun addition to my lessons.
Farming and singing induces intense physical joy for the participants, a sort of dance with a hoe.
— Bennett Konesni photo
The first thing I noticed during these lessons is that I have to switch my musical thinking from "across" the neck of the instrument, (i.e., switching between strings to go up and down the scale) to thinking "vertically": that is, moving my hand and fingers up and down along the kadate's single string. If I want to play a full two-octave G scale on the fiddle I don't need to move my hand up the neck. But to play anything beyond a seventh above the open tone on the kadete I have to slide my hand and fingers up to a new position. And it is normal to play a third and even a fourth above the octave but anything beyond that is exceptional and very difficult to get a good tone.
So the kadate player who accompanies singing has to get very good at moving his hand and fingers (especially the weak pinkie!) into new positions. Furthermore, the kadete parts often double the melodies of the songs, so when a tune dips below the tone of the open string where do you go? Up! And if the melody goes up, out of range of the hand, where do you go? Down! Thus, kadate players have to be very good at playing the melody in unison with the voices, or one octave above, and also one octave below, and they must be able to switch between ranges at almost any time.
This creates one fascinating sonic characteristic of kadate music. A melody can step down just one or two notes, but if it goes below the kadate's range the player, or ningi , will switch to one octave up on the fiddle, while the singers continue in their own register. So if the melody dips one step below the open position (generally the root to the song, or "do" as in "doe a deer") the kadete will actually jump an interval of a seventh UP to the corresponding note. It makes for lots of large jumps, which were very hard for my ear to decipher at first. I'm used to hearing and playing simple stepwise melodic movements, not making large leaps on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths. It's a double challenge because as ningi you sing and play. So you sing stepwise and play "jumpwise."
That brings me to another function of the kadate. Beside outlining the melody of the song, the kadate provides a strong "dance beat." Remember, in addition to farming music this is dance music. And because this style has no drums, the kadate must do the work of setting the dancers' rhythms and driving their energy. So when the kadate isn't following the melody it is driving the rhythm—a bold, strong first beat, and then a jumpy, live feeling created by syncopated variations on beats two, three, and (sometimes) four.
Magungulu farmer. — Bennett Konesni photo
Many of the songs that Hoja plays have a strong 6/8 feeling (ONE two three FOUR five six) which is the same feeling of many of the tunes I grew up dancing to at New England's contra dances. Bodily, that makes it very easy for me to understand and to play. The dancing itself is much different, though, with much rolling of the shoulders, arching of the back, and sticking out of the butt. It is well-enjoyed by the participants (and by loads of Scandinavians who visit mostly to learn how to dance and drum in Sukuma styles.) Personally, I prefer to play the fiddle.
And play I have. I've learned that most kadate songs use a very bluesy scale, like many of the tunes from home. In scale degrees, that is 1 b3 5 6 b7 8. One day Hoja was playing a new song of his and I had my (four string) fiddle out at the time. Something clicked in my head—he was playing the same scale as "working on a building," a song I learned as a bluegrass-gospel number. I started it up, I stopped, started again, and then we had it: the tune, unchanged and with vocals, with the unadulterated and driving, rhythmically complex backing of a Sukuma kadete. It's a real show-stopper.
The Igudija women's group prepares a field for cassava seedlings. — Bennett Konesni photo
All of this musical mixing reminds me to mention that by some accounts musical farming began here when Sukuma porters, walking and singing, brought tunes and traditions home from their long safaris carrying goods to and from the East African coast. A very uninformed part of my inner ear tells me that there is a strong Middle Eastern influence on this kadate music. Is it possible that, like the language and spices of the Arabic traders on the coast, the Sukuma porters brought home a one-stringed fiddle with a powerful voice that they adapted to their own lives of farming and dancing? Questions, questions!
And speaking of show-stoppers, my tunes on the zungu kadete (white guy's fiddle) are improving by leaps and bounds. Playing the kadate has allowed me to begin thinking up the neck of my own instrument, and it has also forced me to improve my rhythmic precision and begin exploring syncopation around the rhythm of the melodies of my favorite tunes. When I get to Italy I will hopefully be able to get my best recordings (including the zungu kadete clips) online for everyone to hear.
And that is coming up faster than I can believe. I leave here on Thursday of this week, and will be in Italy in time for Groundhog Day, which as I understand, is HUGE in Milano.
Good luck on finding some Groundhog Day mischief of your own. And early spring or not, may your own safari continue as planned. Just remember that sometimes an innocent looking rock can turn into a charging rhino at a moment's notice.
— Bennett
P.S. Questions? E-mail me . I'll have some time waiting for the plane next week to answer them, so bring 'em on. And I love all of this snail mail I'm getting. Keep it coming, to the address below! And I for one promise I'll send some postcards before I leave.
596 Union Road
Appleton, ME 04862