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Sangath, www.sangath.com, is looking to build a centre for services, training and research and seeks to buy approx 1500 to 2000 sq mtrs land betweeen Mapusa and Bambolim and surrounding rural areas. Please contact: contac...@sangath.com or yvo...@sangath.com or ph+91-9881499458 http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-July/180028.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ New album opens world's doors to Konkani music By Pamela D'Mello Whichever way one looks at it, there's no denying that lots of things are happening in regional Konkani music, the popular music of Goa. A few months earlier, a German world music record company put out a CD of old Konkani compositions, taking it to the European audience. This month, a transcription of 30 favourites - complete with lyrics, guitar tabs, sheet music and programme notes - is being published and released for world sales, along with a DVD of piano renditions, the first of several promised volumes. The endeavour takes the music from this small region to another level, "making it easily available for choral, chamber, orchestral and other arrangements", besides opening the door "for the world to be able to perform and experience the great beauty of Konkani music", says the Toronto-based transcriber and publisher Francis Rodrigues. Significantly, this lawyer and musician, plans to do the same for Hindi film music as well. Excerpts from an interview. Q. What motivated you to put together this project? A. Traditional Konkani music - mandos, dulpods, dekhnnis - has been documented by a number of learned scholars, but not our popular music unfortunately. The wonderful compositions from the so-called "golden period" of Konkani music - the decade of the '60s and '70s - is sadly unavailable in music notation. This is a prime requisite for our music to go forward: once transcribed, it is then not only easily available for choral, chamber, orchestral and other arrangements, but more importantly opens the door for the world to be able to perform and experience the great beauty of Konkani music. Q. It must have taken a great deal of time and effort, obviously... A. Well.....! Transcription is a rather difficult process, akin to extracting pure gold from base ore. Once done though, it's beauty is available to all. But getting the melody, the timing, the accents, the phrasing, the nuances and tempo down 100 per cent musically correct, exactly as the composer intended, was a mammoth task. Where many recorded versions exist, we had to assimilate a composite. We tested the transcriptions under many different conditions, against recordings, in live performances, reverse-engineered midis and finally with Sibelius, the most advanced music software available. Mind you, I'm only talking about the sheet-music here. Each song has six facets - the sheet-music, chordal accompaniment, guitar tablature for bands, authentic lyrics, the rhymed translations, and finally, detailed and original programme notes. The intricate process I outlined above for just the sheet-music was repeated in every detail for each of the six facets. In a sense, each song was a little novella in itself, so aside from all the other adjunct material in the book, you're getting 30 fascinating little novella episodes of Konkani life. And the rhymed translations uniquely ensured these tunes could now be sung in English. Q. One hears you have plans for a whole series.....? A. Popular recorded Konkani music runs to over 20,000 songs - giants like Alfred Rose with 5,000 and Wilfy Rebimbus with 3,000 dominate, but again, our criteria was simply the most musically memorable. A three-year survey, distilled to the above essence, resulted in a core of approximately 500 songs. At 30 songs a volume, this would approximate 16 volumes. Very time-consuming and thankless perhaps, but at the end of the day, it gives great personal satisfaction. Q. Seems like a very ambitious project. One wishes you luck, but few would venture into this without some cultural grant or something, and yet you have. A. Whilst grants are great, they have their limitations. Subconsciously, I'm allergic to handouts, and if my company is happy to bankroll my foibles, at the very least maybe somebody in greater need will get the grant I didn't take. Q. It seems to be a very comprehensive endeavour. Others have done it in bits and pieces, I imagine.... A. I'm sure everyone who's gone before has done so to the best of his/her abilities. My personal ethos is giving the punter the complete product, lacking in no facet. Hopefully this may ensure its longevity. Q. Konkani music seems to have a niche audience - people from the region, expatriates. Can it travel beyond. Is that what you hope to help make happen? A. In a sense, yes. But music is universal. And every culture, believe it or not, has some form of enchanting music, that will give pleasure to others. But unless transcribed, it will remain unavailable to musicians worldwide. And who knows what inspiration our unique music will provide? Great pop artists are forever on the lookout for ethnic music from diverse regions. Paul Simon, for example, one of the most gifted composers of our time (I've quoted his Cecilia in relation to our dulpod), wrote his enormously successful El Condor Pasa from an Andean folk tune; Scarborough Fair from an English canticle; and his great 1986 Graceland album from a South African odyssey, trawling through their traditional music. Q. You come from a family with sound musical traditions, your children were prodigies. Do you think the third generation expatriate children identify with the music from back home? A. As a matter of fact, they actually seem to. The further away in time, distance and ancestry seems to enhance the pull of the roots. Grandchildren strangely seem more receptive to the old-time tunes hummed by grandpa and grandma. When they get to music class in school, they do try to play these tunes with the help of the firangi music-teacher, but fumble due to the absence of notation. Q. A compilation on Bollywood songs in sheet music and chords is also on the cards. I'm curious as to how you'd make the selection - old Hindi film music or new ones, or just all time popular hits. A. Whilst I would prefer "all-time popular hits", a sensible mixture of all three was our plan. This project became more intriguing as regards the extraneous protagonists involved. Unlike Konkani music where we've dealt with the minimal copyright issues extant, Bollywood is a different ballgame. Quite a few erratic bits of Bollywood extract-type of transcriptions are available for sale, albeit quite rudimentary. I will not comment on their musicality. These "albums" of around 20 extracts, retail for approximately $60. Perhaps copyrights aren't navigated. In our case, after we approached the umbrella companies who own the rights to many Bollywood movies, they started making rumbling noises. Then came the denouement. Representatives had seen a copy of our Konkani Greatest Hits. Turns out the two big companies (no naming names, but think Michael Jackson) had their own plans for Bollywood compilations and, last week, were impressed enough to ask if we'd do a similar one for them and be paid handsomely for our efforts. I am yet to decide. Q. That compilation will be a first, will it not? I don't think music students or anyone could find sheet music for Bollywood songs, if they went looking for it somewhere, could they? A. As I've mentioned, rudimentary extracts are available on the Internet - an "album" for around $60, or individual songs, ranging in price from $8 to 25 each. Of course, in all instances, this is only the single-line melody. There's no chords accompanying, guitar tab, lyrics, translations or liner notes. http://publication.samachar.com/pub_article.php?id=4936499&navname=News%20plus%20&moreurl=http://publication.samachar.com/theasianage/asianageplus/newsplus.php&homeurl=http://publication.samachar.com&nextids=4951094|4951095|4936498|4936499|4920000|4850756|4830920|4818631|4818632|4757115|4740862|4746485|4740863|4746486|4728703|4746487|4719597|4683511|4746488|4683512|4746489|4675115|4746490|4666631|4746491|4652839|4746492|4746493|4633217|4746494|4628308|4619556|4619557|4599918|4570788|4561063|4561064|4525834|4525835|4519129|4510352|4496506|4472742|4472743|4472744|4472745|4462823|4462824|4441872|4441873&nextIndex=4 Goanet A&E http://www.goanet.org
