This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The banjo (its city name), or banjer (its traditional country name) is often thought of as a uniquely American musical instrument. And that is true, as far as it goes. But, like almost everything that wasn’t already here before the Europeans landed, its origins lie elsewhere. When Africans were brought to the New World as slaves, they brought the knowledge of a wide variety of instruments with a neck and a body covered with skin. While there were similar ancient instruments elsewhere in the world, it is clear that the African pattern, especially the akonting, from the area of Senegal and the Gambia—even its style of playing—was the inspiration for the evolution of the banjo. The most likely crucible for such development was the Caribbean: the earliest observers and extant examples come from there. One of the distinctive marks of the instrument was the short, high-pitched string played as an intermittent drone.
A painting, before 1790, is perhaps the earliest depiction of the instrument in the United States.
Early chroniclers in the United States included Thomas Jefferson, who characterized it as a distinctive instrument of the slaves in Virginia. Somewhere along the way European influences such as tuning pegs and a flat fingerboard were added. Probably for practical reasons, the usual gourd-bodied construction was superseded by a drum-like shell and transformed into its modern form; early 19th century instruments are clearly recognizable as the banjo as we now know it.
A genre painting by William Sidney Mount, 1856, showing the instrument in its early modern form.
Follow these links to see videos of musicians playing a modern gourd banjo & fiddle, the author playing a small gourd banjo of his own making, the akonting (the banjo’s most likely ancestor), and the ngoni, another West African instrument.
— Curt Bouterse, Ph.D. is a member of the Center for World Music’s Advisory Board, and is a historical scholar, organologist, traditional musician, and instrument maker widely respected for his deep knowledge of Early and Medieval Music, World Music, and American Folk Music.
We are pleased to share that Putu Hiranmayena, Balinese gamelan musician and much loved teaching artist for the Center for World Music, will be pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Ethnomusicology in the fall of 2015.
To help bid Putu a happy journey we asked Phil Beaumont, Director of the Museum School and David Harnish, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, Music Department, University of San Diego, to write a few words on their experiences working with Putu.
When one walks into the classroom, whether young or old, one can immediately feel the essence of Putu’s passion for Balinese gamelan and, in particular, teaching it to children. HIs smile is contagious, and sets a tone for our students to learn to love the intricate music they play. Putu understands that music is meant to be enjoyed and to be a part of who we are. After teaching students the many possible variations of a piece, he allows them to take ownership as a group and develop their own arrangements for performance. In doing so, he has captured them as musicians, and they can then capture their audience. A true gift.
— Phil Beaumont, Director of the Museum School
For me, I Putu Adi Tangkas Hiranmayena just showed up. I had no idea that other parties (e.g., Alex Khalil, The Museum School, the CWM, and his father [I Made Lasmawan]) had played a part in bringing him to San Diego. Putu contacted me out of the blue, told me he was the son of Pak Lasmawan (a good friend), and volunteered to join the USD Gamelan Ensemble, which I had just started the previous year. What a stroke of luck! Putu had not done a lot of work directing ensembles before coming to San Diego, but he was a skilled musician and drummer and knew a number of tunes. I immediately arranged a stipend for him, and later asked that he direct our gamelan (Balinese gamelan angklung), which he did for two years.
I saw him blossom into a fine and dynamic director, adding his own innovative ideas here and there to the repertoire. He communicated well with our students and got everyone excited about playing as he increased the tempo. He also demanded that students play with precision. We at USD will really miss him and I will personally miss him a lot, but I am very proud of his accomplishments and know he will be in good hands at University of Illinois, where he will team with I Ketut Gede Asnawa and the ethnomusicology faculty. His ideas of metal and gamelan and contemporary music may come further to fruition. Hopefully, we will all see him again some day back in San Diego. I intend to visit him in Bali as well and to meet him at ethnomusicological conferences.
— David Harnish, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, Music Department, University of San Diego
We always knew Putu would one day continue his formal education in ethnomusicology and experimental arts academia. The Center for World Music bids him the best in all of his future endeavors, and thanks him for his contributions to our musical and cultural efforts in San Diego.
While pursuing his Ph.D., Putu will continue work in Balinese gamelan, improvisation, and high adrenaline activities. This includes development of theories in embodiment and creative practices. He hopes to start a gamelan ensemble emphasizing real-time composition.
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Putu-Alex-e1442949547435.jpg674900Monica Emeryhttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngMonica Emery2015-07-22 15:07:022015-08-22 15:22:28Fond Farewell to Putu Hiranmayena
This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The berimbau (bee-rim-bau) is a single string percussion instrument, classified by scholars as a type of musical bow. With origins in Africa, it is the main instrument used to produce the complex rhythms in Brazilian music that accompanies capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. The berimbau consists of a flexible wooden bow called the biriba or verga, a steel string called the arame, and a gourd called cabaça. The berimbau is played with the help of a small, thin stick called the baqueta or vareta, a metal or stone disk called dobrao or pedra, and a caxixi (shaker).
Every part of the berimbau plays a role in the production of the music and rhythm:
Biriba (verga) — The berimbau takes its name from this wooden rod, which is known as the backbone of the instrument. It can be made of many different kinds of wood, but the Brazilian species Eschweilera ovata (Cambess.), of the family Lecythidaceae is considered to be the best material for this part of the instrument.
Arame — Made from a piano string or salvaged from an automobile tire, this steel string has to be strong enough to withstand the tension of the biriba, as well as the battering of the baqueta. Its vibration produces the sound of the berimbau.
Cabaça — Made from a hollowed-out and dried gourd, the cabaça is used to amplify the sound of the arame.
Baqueta — This beater is made from wood, and is used to strike the arame and produce sound.
Dobrão — Usually a coin or flat metal disk, the dobrão is used to vary the sound of the berimbau. When touched against the metal string it produces a higher pitch, and when pulled away from the string the pitch becomes lower. As an alternative to the coin, some players use a small flat stone (pedra).
Caxixi — A small percussion instrument, which consists of a closed basket containing seeds, which is shaken to produce a rhythmic sound. When played with the berimbau, it is held by a loop handle in the same hand as the baqueta, so that it shakes when the baqueta strikes the arame. It is believed that the caxixi summons good spirits, and wards against evil ones.
To assemble the berimbau, the arame is attached to both ends of the biriba and pulled taught, which bends the beriba into its characteristic bow shape. The cabaça is attached to one end of the berimbau with a lace, which also helps the musician support the berimbau with their pinky finger while playing.
There are three sizes of berimbau, often played in an ensemble, and each contributing a different aspect to the music:
Gunga — This instrument has the largest cabaça (gourd) and the most flexible verga, and it produces the lowest pitch.
Médio — This berimbau uses a smaller gourd, with a tone and pitch between that of the gunga and the viola.
Viola — With the smallest gourd, and a less flexible verga, this instrument produces the highest pitch, and is used to add rhythmic fills between the steady rhythm shared by the other berimbaus in the ensemble.
— Claudia Lyra, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist and artistic director of the Brazilian ensemble Nós de Chita
Natasha Kozaily grew up on the small island of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean Sea, 180 miles south of Cuba and 195 miles west of Jamaica. Her parents came from opposite sides of the globe (her mother, a native Cayman Islander, and her father, far from his native Lebanon), resulting in Natasha’s deep love and curiosity for the wide world around her. This can be seen throughout her music, teaching, art, and life.
Natasha has been a teaching artist for the Center’s World Music in the Schools since 2015, when she conducted a 12-week residency teaching Caymanian song and folklore at the San Diego French American School. Natasha has subsequently taught for the CWM at several other schools, including Hearst Elementary and the Museum School, where she also teaches ukulele and songwriting.
A nomad and creative tour de force, Natasha embraces the arts in all its forms. Lover of the stage and theater, she honed her craft at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City where she graduated in 2007. She studied classical piano from the age of seven, and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Cardiff University in Wales, specializing in Ethnomusicology. Her undergraduate ethnomusicology thesis entitled “An Island’s Story: Told through the music of Julia Hydes” is celebrated and treasured as the first and only in-depth writing on Caymanian folk musician and drummer, Miss Julia Hydes (b. 1909, d. 2015). In 2014, Natasha was honored in celebration of Cayman’s National Heroes Day with The Emerging Pioneer Award for her significant contribution to the culture and heritage of the Cayman Islands.
After graduating, Natasha moved to San Diego, California where she now writes, records and performs music under the moniker NATULA. When Natasha is not touring she enjoys sharing the gift of music with others, teaching private piano, ukulele, and voice to students of all ages at Kalabash School of Music and the Arts in the Bird Rock neighborhood of La Jolla. She also teaches various workshops on Caymanian Folk Music and Songwriting to kids and adults in San Diego and abroad. She believes that music is not only a wonderful tool for self-expression, but also a key to understanding ourselves and humanity in this beautifully diverse world we all belong to.
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/NatashaKozaily.jpg640960Monica Emeryhttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngMonica Emery2015-06-23 09:03:192018-10-25 10:09:55Natasha Kozaily, Nomad and Creative Tour de Force
Djoko Walujo Wimboprasetyo, respectfully addressed by his professional colleagues and his adoring students as Pak Djoko (“Father Djoko”), is one of the most highly regarded senior performers of Javanese classical music. An esteemed artist, court musician, and composer, he is one of the most sought-after instructors of Javanese orchestral music in the world. Pak Djoko is a distinguished grand master of the Javanese gamelan—an orchestra of some twenty musicians that varies in size, instrumentation, musical style, and social function. Typically, however, a Javanese gamelan includes tuned bronze gongs, gong-chimes, single- and multi-octave xylophone-like metal instruments, drums, flutes, bowed and plucked stringed instruments, wooden xylophones, and both male and female singers.
For more than two decades, Pak Djoko has directed Javanese gamelan ensembles at the California Institute of the Arts, at the Los Angeles Consulate General of Indonesia, at UCLA, at UC Riverside, at San Diego State University, and at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego.
As a dynamic teacher of university students as well as K-12 children, Pak Djoko recognizes that gamelan is an excellent tool for music education. Indeed, anyone can learn to play gamelan, since no previous knowledge or experience is required, one learns and plays by ear, without written notation, and the simple playing techniques of the various instruments makes the musical experience almost instantly accessible to children and adults of all levels alike.
Pak Djoko studied gamelan music in Java from an early age, under the tutelage of many well-known and distinguished gamelan teachers, including such luminaries as Raden Lurah Dhamowijoyo, Raden Ngabehi Prawira Pangrawit, Raden Mas Handoyo Kusuma, Bapak Harjaswara, Bapak Sunardi Wisnubrata, Bapak Promono, and Bapak Hadi Sumarta. He continued his studies in music at the Indonesian Arts Institute, Yogyakarta, and also in Indonesian law at the University of Gajah Mada. From 1975 until 1992, he served as professor of music at the Indonesian Arts Institute, after which he accepted the position of visiting artist at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Significantly, Pak Djoko’s most distinguished teacher, K. R. T. Wasitodiningrat, a revered senior Javanese gamelan teacher residing in the United States, selected Pak Djoko to be his successor as the Javanese gamelan teacher at the California Institute of the Arts.
Pak Djoko has performed widely, composed award-winning music for Javanese dance-dramas and shadow-puppet plays, or wayang kulit. He has received awards from the Javanese Ministry of Education, the Governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Radio Republic of Indonesia, and the Governor of Central Java.
As the musical director of the Javanese gamelan ensemble at San Diego State University since 1992, and at Canyon Crest Academy since 2010, Pak Djoko has been the revered teacher of many students in San Diego. For the past five years, he has served as distinguished teaching artist for the Center for World Music’s World Music in the Schools program, which is partially supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. He has also served as artistic director of the Center for World Music’s gamelan festivals at Canyon Crest Academy and Ellen Browning Scripps Park in La Jolla.
At his home in Yogyakarta, Central Java, Pak Djoko hosts musical soirées—in support of local Javanese musicians as well as for American university students studying gamelan in Java or traveling to Java in search of deep cultural immersion.
—Lewis Peterman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, School of Music and Dance, San Diego State University
This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The setar is a Persian (Iranian) stringed instrument with a small, pear-shaped soundbox and four metal strings. Its name means “three strings.” A fourth drone string was added about 150 years ago by the mystic Moshtagh Ali Shah. The drone string is called the sim moshtagh (Moshtagh string) by many prominent tar and setar players. This modification gave the delicate instrument a “bigger” sound and more complex tuning possibilities.
The resonating box of the setar is attached to a long neck with twenty-five gut frets. The soundbox is made from mulberry wood, while the neck comes from the walnut tree. The instrument has a melodic range of just over twenty scale degrees. Although it is traditionally played with the right index fingernail, in the past three decades, two distinguished master performers, Mohammad-Reza Lotfi and Hossein Alizadeh, have introduced new techniques to give setar playing a whole new life.
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi playing the setar.
Today the setar is generally considered the supreme instrument for performing Persian classical music. Due to new playing techniques, its evolution, and new approaches to melodies within Persian classical music boundaries, the setar has opened the door to contemporary compositions.
It is hard to believe the setar was nearly forgotten during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the tar‘s increased popularity. A similar but larger instrument with a fuller sound, the tar is double-chambered with three sets of double strings with the same fretting on its neck as the smaller, more delicate setar.
Hossein Alizadeh playing the tar.
In 1984, a pivotal recording of a setar solo performed by the master Mohammad-Reza Lotfi brought the smaller instrument to the attention of a new generation of Persian classical music enthusiasts. Indeed, Lotfi’s historic album, in memory of the great musician Darvish Khan, enticed many young instrument makers and musicians to fall in love with the sound of the setar. Thus a new generation of setar makers and players has recently emerged.
Updated and expanded: March 9, 2021
This project is made possible with support from the California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org.
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kourosh-Setar.jpg526950Kourosh Taghavihttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngKourosh Taghavi2015-06-01 21:37:062025-03-05 09:48:43The Setar: Supreme in Persian Classical Music
On Wednesday, May 6, 2015, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it will make a $55,000 award to the Center for World Music to implement world music and dance instruction in San Diego schools. The award was among 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million made by the NEA nationwide in this funding round.
The grant was the largest grant for arts education awarded in the San Diego area, and the third largest in California.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from the Center for World Music represents an investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NEA-Grants.jpg6111200Lance Nelsonhttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngLance Nelson2015-05-31 21:32:172020-11-26 13:14:00Center for World Music Awarded NEA Grant for World Music in the Schools
This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The mbira is a hand-held musical instrument that evolved in sub-Saharan Africa. In its many different forms, it is capable of producing both intimate singable melodies for meditation and vigorous percussive rhythms for dance. It can be used to delight and entertain, or it can be used to lend solemnity to religious ceremonies. Made from a small block of wood, with rows of tuned metal strips (lamellae) attached, the mbira naturally produces a subdued soft tone that can be amplified by placing it inside a large hollowed-out calabash gourd resonator (deze).
The mbira can be played as a solo instrument or as part of an ensemble, with other mbiras or with drums (ngoma) or rattle shakers (hosho). When two mbiras are played together, each renders a different but complementary interlocking musical part (kushaura or kutsinhira). As a native-trained teaching artist, I currently teach a type of solo mbira from Zimbabwe—the karimba—in the San Diego K-12 public schools.
— Garit Imhoff, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist
Coverage of a Center for World Music Concert Series event, the International Folk Dance Clubs of Balboa Park’s Springfest 2015.
On a wood-floored ballroom in Balboa Park, a smattering of international folk dance enthusiasts paced their way Sunday through provincial traditions from Quebec, Scandinavia, Scotland, Romania and Greece.
“What makes it fun are the mix of rhythms,” said Diane Baker, a retired physical education teacher who traveled from Newport Beach to participate at the festival. “And you learn about the villages where it originated.”
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/UT-Folk-dance.jpg486730Lance Nelsonhttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngLance Nelson2015-04-17 08:25:362018-08-03 15:19:51Waiting for San Diego’s Folk Dance Revival
This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The tabla is a paired drum set from the northern regions of South Asia (North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan). Consisting of a high drum (dayan) and a low drum (dagga or bayan), the tabla is played with the fingers, using a variety of different strokes and hand positions, to produce up to twenty different sounds. Each of these sounds in turn has a name, or a syllable. Together, these syllables (for example: ta, tin, dha, dhin) are used pedagogically as a rhythmic solfège—the syllables are sung to the student in order to teach rhythmic phrases, which are then reproduced on the drums.
Although the tabla was invented and popularized in the Mughal courts of Delhi approximately 300 years ago, the systems of music it stems from are over two thousand years old. The tabla, in a sense, is a modern instrument that reflects South Asia’s embodiment of the ancient and the new—it has both Hindu roots and an Islamic Mughal past while continuing to thrive as a vibrant tradition, both within the contexts of North Indian Classical music as well as in the global musical landscape.
—Miles Shrewsbery, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist
Learn more about Teaching Artist Miles Shrewsbery and his music at tablamiles.com.
https://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Tabla_Pair.jpg6271200Miles Shrewsberyhttps://centerforworldmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/logo_w_red_type_52.pngMiles Shrewsbery2015-03-17 15:19:232025-03-05 07:48:43The Tabla: Paired Drum of South Asia
The Banjer, aka the Banjo
in World Music Instruments/by Curt Bouterse, Ph.D.This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The banjo (its city name), or banjer (its traditional country name) is often thought of as a uniquely American musical instrument. And that is true, as far as it goes. But, like almost everything that wasn’t already here before the Europeans landed, its origins lie elsewhere. When Africans were brought to the New World as slaves, they brought the knowledge of a wide variety of instruments with a neck and a body covered with skin. While there were similar ancient instruments elsewhere in the world, it is clear that the African pattern, especially the akonting, from the area of Senegal and the Gambia—even its style of playing—was the inspiration for the evolution of the banjo. The most likely crucible for such development was the Caribbean: the earliest observers and extant examples come from there. One of the distinctive marks of the instrument was the short, high-pitched string played as an intermittent drone.
A painting, before 1790, is perhaps the earliest depiction of the instrument in the United States.
Early chroniclers in the United States included Thomas Jefferson, who characterized it as a distinctive instrument of the slaves in Virginia. Somewhere along the way European influences such as tuning pegs and a flat fingerboard were added. Probably for practical reasons, the usual gourd-bodied construction was superseded by a drum-like shell and transformed into its modern form; early 19th century instruments are clearly recognizable as the banjo as we now know it.
A genre painting by William Sidney Mount, 1856, showing the instrument in its early modern form.
Follow these links to see videos of musicians playing a modern gourd banjo & fiddle, the author playing a small gourd banjo of his own making, the akonting (the banjo’s most likely ancestor), and the ngoni, another West African instrument.
— Curt Bouterse, Ph.D. is a member of the Center for World Music’s Advisory Board, and is a historical scholar, organologist, traditional musician, and instrument maker widely respected for his deep knowledge of Early and Medieval Music, World Music, and American Folk Music.
Fond Farewell to Putu Hiranmayena
in CWM News, World Music in the Schools/by Monica EmeryWe are pleased to share that Putu Hiranmayena, Balinese gamelan musician and much loved teaching artist for the Center for World Music, will be pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Ethnomusicology in the fall of 2015.
To help bid Putu a happy journey we asked Phil Beaumont, Director of the Museum School and David Harnish, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, Music Department, University of San Diego, to write a few words on their experiences working with Putu.
While pursuing his Ph.D., Putu will continue work in Balinese gamelan, improvisation, and high adrenaline activities. This includes development of theories in embodiment and creative practices. He hopes to start a gamelan ensemble emphasizing real-time composition.
The Berimbau: A Brazilian Musical Bow
in World Music Instruments/by Claudia LyraThis article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The berimbau (bee-rim-bau) is a single string percussion instrument, classified by scholars as a type of musical bow. With origins in Africa, it is the main instrument used to produce the complex rhythms in Brazilian music that accompanies capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. The berimbau consists of a flexible wooden bow called the biriba or verga, a steel string called the arame, and a gourd called cabaça. The berimbau is played with the help of a small, thin stick called the baqueta or vareta, a metal or stone disk called dobrao or pedra, and a caxixi (shaker).
Every part of the berimbau plays a role in the production of the music and rhythm:
Biriba (verga) — The berimbau takes its name from this wooden rod, which is known as the backbone of the instrument. It can be made of many different kinds of wood, but the Brazilian species Eschweilera ovata (Cambess.), of the family Lecythidaceae is considered to be the best material for this part of the instrument.
Arame — Made from a piano string or salvaged from an automobile tire, this steel string has to be strong enough to withstand the tension of the biriba, as well as the battering of the baqueta. Its vibration produces the sound of the berimbau.
Cabaça — Made from a hollowed-out and dried gourd, the cabaça is used to amplify the sound of the arame.
Baqueta — This beater is made from wood, and is used to strike the arame and produce sound.
Dobrão — Usually a coin or flat metal disk, the dobrão is used to vary the sound of the berimbau. When touched against the metal string it produces a higher pitch, and when pulled away from the string the pitch becomes lower. As an alternative to the coin, some players use a small flat stone (pedra).
Caxixi — A small percussion instrument, which consists of a closed basket containing seeds, which is shaken to produce a rhythmic sound. When played with the berimbau, it is held by a loop handle in the same hand as the baqueta, so that it shakes when the baqueta strikes the arame. It is believed that the caxixi summons good spirits, and wards against evil ones.
There are three sizes of berimbau, often played in an ensemble, and each contributing a different aspect to the music:
Gunga — This instrument has the largest cabaça (gourd) and the most flexible verga, and it produces the lowest pitch.
Médio — This berimbau uses a smaller gourd, with a tone and pitch between that of the gunga and the viola.
Viola — With the smallest gourd, and a less flexible verga, this instrument produces the highest pitch, and is used to add rhythmic fills between the steady rhythm shared by the other berimbaus in the ensemble.
— Claudia Lyra, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist and artistic director of the Brazilian ensemble Nós de Chita
You can view Claudia demonstrating the berimbau on the Center for World Music’s YouTube Channel.
Natasha Kozaily, Nomad and Creative Tour de Force
in CWM News, World Music in the Schools/by Monica EmeryNatasha Kozaily grew up on the small island of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean Sea, 180 miles south of Cuba and 195 miles west of Jamaica. Her parents came from opposite sides of the globe (her mother, a native Cayman Islander, and her father, far from his native Lebanon), resulting in Natasha’s deep love and curiosity for the wide world around her. This can be seen throughout her music, teaching, art, and life.
Natasha has been a teaching artist for the Center’s World Music in the Schools since 2015, when she conducted a 12-week residency teaching Caymanian song and folklore at the San Diego French American School. Natasha has subsequently taught for the CWM at several other schools, including Hearst Elementary and the Museum School, where she also teaches ukulele and songwriting.
A nomad and creative tour de force, Natasha embraces the arts in all its forms. Lover of the stage and theater, she honed her craft at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City where she graduated in 2007. She studied classical piano from the age of seven, and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Cardiff University in Wales, specializing in Ethnomusicology. Her undergraduate ethnomusicology thesis entitled “An Island’s Story: Told through the music of Julia Hydes” is celebrated and treasured as the first and only in-depth writing on Caymanian folk musician and drummer, Miss Julia Hydes (b. 1909, d. 2015). In 2014, Natasha was honored in celebration of Cayman’s National Heroes Day with The Emerging Pioneer Award for her significant contribution to the culture and heritage of the Cayman Islands.
After graduating, Natasha moved to San Diego, California where she now writes, records and performs music under the moniker NATULA. When Natasha is not touring she enjoys sharing the gift of music with others, teaching private piano, ukulele, and voice to students of all ages at Kalabash School of Music and the Arts in the Bird Rock neighborhood of La Jolla. She also teaches various workshops on Caymanian Folk Music and Songwriting to kids and adults in San Diego and abroad. She believes that music is not only a wonderful tool for self-expression, but also a key to understanding ourselves and humanity in this beautifully diverse world we all belong to.
Djoko Walujo, Revered Teacher of Javanese Gamelan
in CWM News, World Music in the Schools/by Lewis PetermanDjoko Walujo Wimboprasetyo, respectfully addressed by his professional colleagues and his adoring students as Pak Djoko (“Father Djoko”), is one of the most highly regarded senior performers of Javanese classical music. An esteemed artist, court musician, and composer, he is one of the most sought-after instructors of Javanese orchestral music in the world. Pak Djoko is a distinguished grand master of the Javanese gamelan—an orchestra of some twenty musicians that varies in size, instrumentation, musical style, and social function. Typically, however, a Javanese gamelan includes tuned bronze gongs, gong-chimes, single- and multi-octave xylophone-like metal instruments, drums, flutes, bowed and plucked stringed instruments, wooden xylophones, and both male and female singers.
For more than two decades, Pak Djoko has directed Javanese gamelan ensembles at the California Institute of the Arts, at the Los Angeles Consulate General of Indonesia, at UCLA, at UC Riverside, at San Diego State University, and at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego.
As a dynamic teacher of university students as well as K-12 children, Pak Djoko recognizes that gamelan is an excellent tool for music education. Indeed, anyone can learn to play gamelan, since no previous knowledge or experience is required, one learns and plays by ear, without written notation, and the simple playing techniques of the various instruments makes the musical experience almost instantly accessible to children and adults of all levels alike.
Pak Djoko studied gamelan music in Java from an early age, under the tutelage of many well-known and distinguished gamelan teachers, including such luminaries as Raden Lurah Dhamowijoyo, Raden Ngabehi Prawira Pangrawit, Raden Mas Handoyo Kusuma, Bapak Harjaswara, Bapak Sunardi Wisnubrata, Bapak Promono, and Bapak Hadi Sumarta. He continued his studies in music at the Indonesian Arts Institute, Yogyakarta, and also in Indonesian law at the University of Gajah Mada. From 1975 until 1992, he served as professor of music at the Indonesian Arts Institute, after which he accepted the position of visiting artist at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Significantly, Pak Djoko’s most distinguished teacher, K. R. T. Wasitodiningrat, a revered senior Javanese gamelan teacher residing in the United States, selected Pak Djoko to be his successor as the Javanese gamelan teacher at the California Institute of the Arts.
Pak Djoko has performed widely, composed award-winning music for Javanese dance-dramas and shadow-puppet plays, or wayang kulit. He has received awards from the Javanese Ministry of Education, the Governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Radio Republic of Indonesia, and the Governor of Central Java.
At his home in Yogyakarta, Central Java, Pak Djoko hosts musical soirées—in support of local Javanese musicians as well as for American university students studying gamelan in Java or traveling to Java in search of deep cultural immersion.
—Lewis Peterman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, School of Music and Dance, San Diego State University
The Setar: Supreme in Persian Classical Music
in World Music Instruments/by Kourosh TaghaviThis article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The setar is a Persian (Iranian) stringed instrument with a small, pear-shaped soundbox and four metal strings. Its name means “three strings.” A fourth drone string was added about 150 years ago by the mystic Moshtagh Ali Shah. The drone string is called the sim moshtagh (Moshtagh string) by many prominent tar and setar players. This modification gave the delicate instrument a “bigger” sound and more complex tuning possibilities.
The resonating box of the setar is attached to a long neck with twenty-five gut frets. The soundbox is made from mulberry wood, while the neck comes from the walnut tree. The instrument has a melodic range of just over twenty scale degrees. Although it is traditionally played with the right index fingernail, in the past three decades, two distinguished master performers, Mohammad-Reza Lotfi and Hossein Alizadeh, have introduced new techniques to give setar playing a whole new life.
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi playing the setar.
Today the setar is generally considered the supreme instrument for performing Persian classical music. Due to new playing techniques, its evolution, and new approaches to melodies within Persian classical music boundaries, the setar has opened the door to contemporary compositions.
It is hard to believe the setar was nearly forgotten during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the tar‘s increased popularity. A similar but larger instrument with a fuller sound, the tar is double-chambered with three sets of double strings with the same fretting on its neck as the smaller, more delicate setar.
Hossein Alizadeh playing the tar.
In 1984, a pivotal recording of a setar solo performed by the master Mohammad-Reza Lotfi brought the smaller instrument to the attention of a new generation of Persian classical music enthusiasts. Indeed, Lotfi’s historic album, in memory of the great musician Darvish Khan, enticed many young instrument makers and musicians to fall in love with the sound of the setar. Thus a new generation of setar makers and players has recently emerged.
Updated and expanded: March 9, 2021
This project is made possible with support from the California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org.
Center for World Music Awarded NEA Grant for World Music in the Schools
in CWM News, World Music in the Schools/by Lance NelsonOn Wednesday, May 6, 2015, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it will make a $55,000 award to the Center for World Music to implement world music and dance instruction in San Diego schools. The award was among 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million made by the NEA nationwide in this funding round.
The grant was the largest grant for arts education awarded in the San Diego area, and the third largest in California.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from the Center for World Music represents an investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”
For more, see our press release.
The Karimba Mbira of Zimbabwe
in World Music Instruments/by Garit ImhoffThis article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The mbira is a hand-held musical instrument that evolved in sub-Saharan Africa. In its many different forms, it is capable of producing both intimate singable melodies for meditation and vigorous percussive rhythms for dance. It can be used to delight and entertain, or it can be used to lend solemnity to religious ceremonies. Made from a small block of wood, with rows of tuned metal strips (lamellae) attached, the mbira naturally produces a subdued soft tone that can be amplified by placing it inside a large hollowed-out calabash gourd resonator (deze).
The mbira can be played as a solo instrument or as part of an ensemble, with other mbiras or with drums (ngoma) or rattle shakers (hosho). When two mbiras are played together, each renders a different but complementary interlocking musical part (kushaura or kutsinhira). As a native-trained teaching artist, I currently teach a type of solo mbira from Zimbabwe—the karimba—in the San Diego K-12 public schools.
— Garit Imhoff, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist
See the mbira in action on YouTube. Also, San Diego students playing the Zimbabwean karimba.
View Teaching Artist Garit Imhoff in performance with Zimbeat on YouTube.
Waiting for San Diego’s Folk Dance Revival
in CWM News/by Lance NelsonUnion Tribune San Diego, April 12, 2015
Coverage of a Center for World Music Concert Series event, the International Folk Dance Clubs of Balboa Park’s Springfest 2015.
Read the full article at www.utsandiego.com.
The Tabla: Paired Drum of South Asia
in World Music Instruments/by Miles ShrewsberyThis article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.
The tabla is a paired drum set from the northern regions of South Asia (North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan). Consisting of a high drum (dayan) and a low drum (dagga or bayan), the tabla is played with the fingers, using a variety of different strokes and hand positions, to produce up to twenty different sounds. Each of these sounds in turn has a name, or a syllable. Together, these syllables (for example: ta, tin, dha, dhin) are used pedagogically as a rhythmic solfège—the syllables are sung to the student in order to teach rhythmic phrases, which are then reproduced on the drums.
Although the tabla was invented and popularized in the Mughal courts of Delhi approximately 300 years ago, the systems of music it stems from are over two thousand years old. The tabla, in a sense, is a modern instrument that reflects South Asia’s embodiment of the ancient and the new—it has both Hindu roots and an Islamic Mughal past while continuing to thrive as a vibrant tradition, both within the contexts of North Indian Classical music as well as in the global musical landscape.
—Miles Shrewsbery, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist
See the tabla in action on YouTube: Tabla Legend Ustad Alla Rakha | Interview with Zakir Hussain (Alla Rakha’s son) | Miles Shrewsbery Tabla Solo
Learn more about Teaching Artist Miles Shrewsbery and his music at tablamiles.com.