Saturday, June 23, 2007

The Xylophone makers and musicians of Lawra District


Lawra District is renowned for its xylophone makers and players; one such musician and xylophone maker lives just a few hundred metres from our house and we can hear him ‘tuning-up’ and practising most evenings. On our way back from our Burkina Faso border cycle trip we met this gentleman and his band who had been accompanying George’s 90 yr old mum’s funeral celebration the previous evening and into the following day!The xylophones have wooden ‘keys’ with carefully selected and shaped gourds fixed underneath providing the resonance chambers; the overall timbre is a very soft, mellow and round, xylophone type of sound which is better heard than described!

2 comments:

helen said...

Your news is really interesting. I've just sat and read the last few and really envy the pair of you. Here it's still wet and cold and Africa seems a long time ago. Enjoy!!

Andrew said...

Hi,

I was at Lawra SSS for 3 years 94 to 96. I was interested to reading you blog. Somethings seemed to have chnaged (internet in Wa ! Amazing). Others probably never will.

Are you working at the school ? If so, who is the headmaster now ? Is the school driver still Bob ? If so please greet him for me.

Andrew