As great amateurs of music, we have been to numerous concerts for several years: Youssou N’Dour, Burning Spear (reggae), Shakti (Hindu music), Femi Kuti (afro-jazz), Peruvian groups, Israel Vibration (reggae), John Mac Laughlin trio (jazz), the Lounge Lizards (modern jazz), Asian Dub Foundation (jungle dub), Rabih Abou Khalil (“arab-jazz”), Mongolian groups,…
We do not have a real musical training, and yet we think that we can take up music differently, i.e in the ears or in feelings. Indeed, we think that it is totally possible to understand music, and especially feel it, without any musical training. You only need to pay enough attention to the music, without any prejudices.
Since we have always really appreciated the world music, we consider this trip as a unique occasion to realise our dream, i.e to discover all these musics in their original countries, through the contact of these artists of other cultures. Thus we may discover real artists whose inspiration takes its source in an ancestral culture. So we would record these traditional musicians so that this tradition never dies and, by our account, we hope to be able to make people listening to us, feel the musical power of these various forms of traditional music.
Through our account, we would wish to make discover other musical features, especially to young people, and awake in them some kind of respect, reflecting a perpetual wish of discovering all these music. Indeed, the music of the future lies in today’s youth.
We will meet these musicians by different ways, more or less diverted: National Conservatory of Traditional Music, bars, by word of mouth… Musicians recorded will sign a moral and verbal contract of trust with us. When we get back, if we can produce a CD , and if we get enough money , we will send it to them.
Obviously the record of traditional musicians implies a mutual trust which cannot be established right after the first evening. Thus, we will remain in touch with the musicians met, on the one hand to make our account the most complete possible, on the other hand to learn the real meaning of music in their touch. Finally, recorded music will be partly put on the net, added to the photos taken during the trip, in order to supplement the travel diaries.
We have both discovered the practice of music through the contact with other musicians. We are musicians amateurs, however we have a quite great adaptability thanks to our habit to play with various people, all very different from each other, and with very different musical instruments. Indeed, we have already had the opportunity to play with instruments from very different origins: didgeridoo, darbouka, congas, Tibetan’s bells, djembe, guiro, berimboo, sanza, balafon, bells, saxophone, guitar, bass, drums, bangos, groove-box, claves, tabla, keyboard, ocarina, resonant tubes, maracas, castanets, spoon, tambourine, daf, quena, harmonica, kazoo…
Voices and throat-singings are to be added to this list.We think that this ability to play with numerous people, will be helpful for a better integration with the different musical groups we will meet. So, we intend to bring with us musical instruments in order to be able to play, accompanied by the people we meet, and so ease the cultural exchange.
We will have some Jew’s harps, an harmonica and little percussion. It isn’t worth mentioning our voices which will accompany us during the whole trip of course.
Finally, this trip will enable us to discover other sounds and other conceptions totally different from music. So we will become richer. Indeed, the discovery of technique and musical traditions completely different can only motivate us to direct our musical research in other directions and this, farther and farther. We want to realise a union, or better-said a complementary between western music and the ones of other nations.