I wanted to see if they had a live video of the Ghana Post Office, but this was the closest I could find.
They are singing something different, but its still a Ghana work song with lots of stamping and beating.
It's still a great way to pass the time!
This link is really interesting too. It leads to a gallery of musical instruments from around the world. If you look under each sections you can find many Native American, African as well as many instruments (with pictures included) from around the world.
As a string player, I find the the harp and string instrument section really fascinating. My favorite African instrument under that section is probably the Chipendani, it looks like a shooting bow, but no its an mouth bowed instrument with one string.
http://www.asza.com/ihm.shtml
Here is a video of how the Chipendani sounds.
Well that's enough of the African music culture. Here is a gorgeous piece by Carlos Nakai. It's called the "Four Sacred Mountains" performed by Nakai, himself.
The description for the video on Youtube explained that the title of this piece derived from the belief that the Creater placed the Navajo between four sacred mountains. (Blanca Peak in Colorado, Mount Taylor in New Mexico, the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, and Hesperus Peak in Colorado. )-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UGp-s7Auo
Thanks for posting the video with the postal workers! I kept trying to figure out how stamps could make so many rhythms and now I know. I also found the Chipendani really interesting. I don't think I've ever seen an instrument quite like that before. I can't think of any other instrument that's a wind instrument that also has strings to pluck. That's really neat!
ReplyDeleteI posted the postal worker video too! :) Be sure to check out my cool stuff blog...I posted a link to James Koetting's (the guy who recorded the "Postal Workers" song) recordings and journals from that trip in the 1970s. There's quite a collection of interesting music.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the world instrument link. Now I have something to pass the time. We always think of our own Western collection of instruments as expansive, but it's almost difficult to grasp the innumerable amount of other instruments in the world!
Yea for postal workers! Now you can all see sort of how the whole thing worked, even if it's not the same recording as the one we used. And Carlos Nakai is always wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing that Postal Worker song in class, it was great to see someone doing something similar. Thanks for the post! I'm still impressed with how awesome envelopes and stamps can sound.
ReplyDeleteI really liked watching the postal worker video! The instrument called the Chipendani is really cool as well, it makes me think of a whistle built into a travel friendly sitar.
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