English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
The griot of Boubon and possession music 0:21 An art lives only through the pleasure one finds in it. This pleasure can range from the simple satisfaction of masters of sound to the profound spiritual joy that the hearing or performance of masterpieces can give.
1:16 Boubon. On the Niamey-Tillabéri national road, nothing signals the presence of a village. As far as the eye can see, a few black rocks and a handful of trees. And as a path suddenly slopes down, the river valley appears. The miracle of water has occurred.
2:15 The role of the griot has become more modest. At the market in Boubon, Ousmane plucks a few nostalgic notes on his godier, a one-stringed fiddle. This instrument, specific to possession music, is generally accompanied by percussion instruments such as the calabash.
3:16 Ousmane makes his living playing and singing praise songs, tirelessly.
4:51 [Passage in an unidentified language or transcription noise, left as transcribed] Et ma kani ebon sezama ekan anbo dillen di kone nan kankubay nan ke siinil kule eko. Zame tam ha, se skariola eko hal piyong nyong. Eko piyong nyong festival di mondo kankye noodi en 89. Koret eko yodi. Yifu noodi wodi mbande 91 yeki eko libi kwenye. Africa, Lade, Ganga, Togo, Tene, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina, Kulenice, Philippe Sabura.
Survival of ceremonies and the creation of the CFPM 5:55 Traditional ceremonies survive against all odds, and this survival is therefore also that of the music that accompanies them. These images are an integral part of daily life in Niger, where traditional music is particularly alive among both the settled population and the nomads. The musical art of the Peul Bororo, for example, is exclusively vocal.
8:03 An awareness of the traditional cultural heritage is emerging, along with a will to safeguard its evidence. A tangible and very encouraging sign of this will lies in the creation of the Centre for Musical Training and Promotion, the CFPM. The center was originally motivated first of all by the desire of Niger's musicians to break somewhat out of the geographical and, in part, historical isolation in which they found themselves until the opening of this center in 1989.
8:34 Its originality lies in bringing together at once the functions of training, as in a conservatory, of research, as in an institute, and of promotion, that is, support for musical production — all of this was called for by the musicians themselves. There is no place, precisely, that expresses a formula identical to ours, where researchers, students, beginners, and advanced, established musicians rub shoulders in the same place at the same time.
9:14 The Nigerien government had the satisfaction of seeing that the European Commission — the Commission of the European Communities, better known here under the title FED — took this as an opportunity to put into practice the provisions set out in the Lomé Convention, a convention that links the 12 countries of the European Community to the countries of the South, the ACP countries — Africa, Caribbean, Pacific.
9:44 As early as the early 1980s, the Lomé III convention already provided in its texts for the integration of culture as a component of development in its own right, alongside the more traditional areas of development aid. But it was somewhat a dead letter, and it is already a source of pride for Niger that it should be the first embodiment in practice of these texts. There is the fact that all over the world people applaud Korean violinists, Japanese conductors, in the great international classical music competitions — essentially in the countries of the North — and virtually every region of the world produces laureates except sub-Saharan Africa.
The African paradox and the orchestra-workshops 10:30 And it would be surprising to put forward the hypothesis that, I don't know, Koreans might be more gifted for music than Africans. I believe there is a contradiction in the fact that the whole world recognizes that sub-Saharan Africa is one of, of all the regions of the world, those where populations are most musically motivated, and paradoxically it is in this region that there are the fewest musical training institutions. There was a distortion that needed to be remedied. A young Japanese person, for example, can choose to play rock, to play salsa, to play classical music, to take up traditional Japanese music or jazz.
11:10 And a young Nigerien could not do so, because there was no adequate institution for that at the time. What people don't know, however, is that some young musicians arrived at our center as complete beginners, who had never even seen a keyboard in their lives, and have now become teachers who not only earn a living but sometimes teach outside the center as well, and who sometimes have a monthly income equal to or greater than that of a central administrative director. Furthermore, the workshop orchestras — and this is one of the original features of our approach — the workshop orchestras we have formed, in which so-called modern musicians work alongside so-called traditional musicians, have now become genuine service providers who are booked sometimes two or three times in the same week, either by private individuals who can afford an orchestra for an evening event, or by institutions — it might be a hotel holding a Caribbean night or a German-style sauerkraut evening.
12:27 An Austrian-themed evening, it could be a gala evening, a dance evening. And for that it was necessary to form orchestras with musicians capable of handling all these repertoires. This too is a first for the region. And on that level, Niger's musicians need have no complex at all compared to other musicians in the region. I would even say that all too often Nigeriens, if I may allow myself this criticism, look too much outward, abroad, while overlooking the treasures they have at home.
13:03 And when people tell me about the many orchestras thriving in neighboring countries, Burkina or Benin, one does indeed find excellent orchestras, but ones confined to a single repertoire. Nigerien musical life shows remarkable signs of vitality. The most obvious and important of these signs lies in the preservation of its heritage.
Maintaining heritage and teaching at the center 13:45 Alongside the new style, whose legitimacy there is no place to contest. By its vocation, the CFPM and the Jutaya of Niamey constitute a unique project in Africa. Its definitive orientation cannot yet be precisely determined, and its originality.
14:15 lies precisely in its flexibility and its character as a place of multi-ethnic, informal and multipurpose musical encounters and confrontations. It represents a formula suited to this region of Africa. Notably, among other things, courses in general music theory, an introduction to musical analysis, flute, drums, music theory (solfège), saxophone, trumpet and instrument-making, as well as guitar and keyboard classes.
15:52 Foreign professional musicians are even invited to form bands. The rhythm is a bit more forced because the children are very excitable, so I go at it a bit strongly.
17:01 Videos, reviews and a large number of good-quality musical instruments are made available to beginners and to those who wish to be introduced to music.
The instrument-making workshop and the sacred drum 17:42 The CFPM is committed to promoting traditional musical instruments and the music associated with them. With this in mind, the workshop for making and maintaining musical instruments was created in July 1990. The workshop is meant to allow the learning of these crafts beyond any socio-professional or religious consideration attached to the function of the griot or minstrel. Nowadays it is the so-called traditional artists who provide the training.
18:48 The instrumentarium of Niger is rich and varied. One finds every type of instrument there: membranophones, drums; chordophones, fiddles, lutes; aerophones, flutes, oboes; idiophones, percussion. These instruments are frequently given a particular attribution or function. As for animist implications, the drum must be mentioned first and foremost. This instrument that you see, which is called the banga. This instrument is sacred. Sacred, first of all, because it is only used among traditional chiefs.
19:21 Sacred because the cloth you see here is a white shroud. And this shroud is a piece of cloth taken after someone's death. And originally, with the coming of Islamization, things tended to change, if not actually changed — the skin, the membrane you see here, used to be from the shroud itself. And, without going so far as to reveal certain secrets, when there is a dispute at the level of the royal courts between two princes, or in the case of the death of a traditional chief, it is this drum that is brought in at a certain moment to settle the matter.
Mohamed Garba, singer and researcher 20:10 Born in 1954 in Kornaka, in the Maradi department, Mohamed Garba has for nearly 20 years been fighting for the flourishing of our music. A musician and musicologist, Mohamed Garba is a living conscience of his own musical, ethnic and religious culture, but also of the present state of musical practice, with the problems that the evolution of society and customs has posed for several decades now, in the direction of Europeanization. One discovers in him a genuine enthusiasm for the most authentic values of Nigerien traditions and a firm will to contribute effectively to their preservation and revaluation.
20:50 It is in this spirit that he undertook a vast survey of musical practices in Niger, in order to draw from it the material for a doctoral thesis in musicology, on July 1st, 1992, at the musicology department of the University of Strasbourg in France.
21:39 As I was saying, there are songs, tunes and sung games that have disappeared and that we are now rehabilitating by collecting them. The same is true now for what is called organology: musical instruments that have disappeared, or that are even in the process of disappearing, which we restore for their revitalization and preservation. And what you see behind me here is the instrument-making workshop, which is a kind of living museum where the instruments are not only exhibited but also used.
22:11 Used by those who do research. You saw, there is an instrument-maker there who closes off the site and does the making. To combine the useful with the pleasant, independently of research, the particularity of our center is that, apart from research, we also do teaching. Teaching music to traditional practitioners who already know it, but trying to marry tradition and modernism. That is to say, Mohamed Garba the singer is in fact the one you see on stage singing. That is the face that music lovers and others who know me are familiar with.
22:46 But in fact, the researcher is something else. I can, without necessarily singing, try to search, to do research on a musical genre, for example like the Biti. I can study it, study the rhythm, the rhythm truly suited to be used in modern, youthful music. And a young person who wants to use that rhythm, I put it at his disposal, I make arrangements for him, and it's an exchange. This research consists not only in enabling musicians who have a trained ear, but also, on the other hand, in enabling this instrument — we have helped modern musicians to use these instruments alongside modern instruments, to know its range, the scale of the instrument.
23:28 We have set up, based on this device, something that is both a metronome and an electronic tuner.
25:14 [music] Music of oral tradition, tied to improvisation, is born in the street and can be learned in school.
25:49 The motif of an instrument is an obligatory passage, like a river to be crossed before continuing on one's way. The means used to get past the obstacle change neither the direction nor the destination of the traveler.
