Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End
    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End
    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End
    Ebook184 pages1 hour

    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End

    By Ian Brennan, Marilena Umuhoza Delli and Dame Evelyn Glennie

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End details Grammy-winning music producer and author Ian Brennan’s ongoing quest to provide musical platforms for underrepresented nations and populations around the world.

    In a compact and quick-read format, Missing Music collects the latest narratives from Brennan’s field-recording treks. This edition features a greater emphasis on storytelling and an even greater abundance of photos from his wife, Italian-Rwandan photographer/filmmaker Marilena Umuhoza Delli.

    Together, they meet the elderly shamans of the world’s most musical language, Taa, a tongue that sadly is dying, with fewer than 2,500 speakers left. The duo traveled the most remote roads of Botswana to find the formally nomadic people now relegated to small desert towns.

    In Azerbaijan, Brennan and Delli ascended to the mountainous Iranian border to record centenarians in scattered villages of the Talysh minority, where the world’s oldest man reportedly reached the age of 168. The result is the only record ever released to feature the voices of singers over one-hundred years of age.

    Among other tales, Brennan also updates the saga of the Sheltered Workshop Singers following COVID, including the tragic deterioration of his sister, Jane.

    Arising from the more than forty records that Brennan has produced over the past decade from underrepresented nations such as Comoros, Djibouti, Romania, South Sudan, Suriname, and Cambodia, Missing Music serves as the newest suite in the multiverse symphony of the world’s most ignored corners—the places where countries expire and the “forgotten” live.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPM Press
    Release dateApr 2, 2024
    ISBN9798887440477
    Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End
    Author

    Ian Brennan

    Ian Brennan is Grammy-winning producer who has produced three Grammy-nominated albums and published seven books while also teaching violence prevention around the world since 1993 for organizations such as the Smithsonian and the National Accademia of Science (Rome). Brennan released his first album in 1987 and in the past decade has produced over forty records by international artists from five continents, which have resulted in the first widely released original music albums from nations such as Rwanda, Malawi, Kosovo, South Sudan, Romania, Comoros, and Vietnam. He has worked with artists as diverse as Fugazi, country legend Merle Haggard, Sleater-Kinney, and Green Day. His work has appeared in the New York Times, PBS television, and in an Emmy-winning segment of 60 Minutes.

    Read more from Ian Brennan

    Related to Missing Music

    Related ebooks

    Music For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      From Our Community

      Jul 7, 2021

      Sitting on the steps of the Sydney Opera House at the Crowded House Reunion concert. Our Vietnamese family amongst an a cappella choir of 6000 others singing “Fall at Your Feet,” thinking to myself, There are few moments in my life more Australian th

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Disco Is Back

      Aug 10, 2023

      Disco Is Back
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Chandni

      Oct 25, 2021

      Chandni
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Scatterling Of Africa

      Oct 1, 2021

      Scatterling Of Africa
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Linda Marigliano On Why Music Matters

      Sep 26, 2021

      My dad is a hairdresser and throughout my childhood, he would cut, wash and blow-dry my hair in a makeshift salon set-up in our laundry. He would lather up my hair in the deep sink and I’d shut my eyes tightly to prevent any shampoo dripping into the

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Editorial

      Jul 7, 2021

      Editorial
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Play It Again, Cyrill

      Jun 9, 2022

      Play It Again, Cyrill
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bonded by Song

      Jul 7, 2021

      Bonded by Song
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Listening Deeply

      Oct 12, 2021

      The one activity that distinguishes audiophiles from other music lovers is our practice of sitting in solitude and listening closely to music reproduced on a finely tuned playback system. That is not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with playin

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Nu World Burdens

      May 19, 2021

      Nu World Burdens
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Making Music That Heals

      Dec 4, 2020

      Making Music That Heals
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Alone With My Faith

      Jul 30, 2021

      Alone With My Faith
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Naomi Keyte The Value Of Place

      Sep 5, 2023

      Naomi Keyte The Value Of Place
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Thank You For The Music

      Sep 28, 2021

      Thank You For The Music
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Artist Activist

      Dec 10, 2019

      Artist Activist
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      We Need A New Word.

      Dec 8, 2020

      When I first heard the word “audiophile,” I loved it. It sounded fresh and dignified. I related to it instantly. An audiophile! I loved the whole idea of it, the focus on music, on sound. That was me! I’d found myself! And people like me. Other audio

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Rhythm Of Life

      Sep 30, 2024

      We’ve all heard the line, variously attributed to Elvis Costello, Frank Zappa, Thelonious Monk and even Clara Schumann (though the last seems unlikely): “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” It’s a cliché. But while dancing about

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      “Music Is A Bitch Goddess”

      Dec 2, 2024

      “Music Is A Bitch Goddess”
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Branford Marsalis

      May 14, 2019

      Branford Marsalis
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Missing Music

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Missing Music - Ian Brennan

      Cover: Missing Music, Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End by Ian Brennan

      OTHER TITLES BY IAN BRENNAN

      Muse-Sick: A Music Manifesto in Fifty-Nine Notes (with a foreword by John Waters)

      Silenced by Sound: The Music Meritocracy Myth (with a foreword by Tunde Adebimpe)

      How Music Dies (or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts (with a foreword by Corin Tucker)

      Sister Maple Syrup Eyes (novella)

      Hate-less: Violence Prevention & How to Make Friends with a F&#!ed Up World

      Anger Antidotes: How Not to Lose Your S#&!

      Italian language (with Marilena Umuhoza Delli)

      Pizza Mussolini

      Negretta: Baci Razzisti

      Missing Music

      Voices from Where the

      Dirt Roads End

      Ian Brennan

      Foreword by Dame Evelyn Glennie

      Photos by Marilena Umuhoza Delli

      Missing Music: Voices from Where the Dirt Roads End

      © Ian Brennan

      This edition © PM Press 2024

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Note: the use or not of personal names throughout this book was based on the wishes of those involved.

      ISBN: 979−8−88744−037−8 (paperback)

      ISBN: 979−8−88744−047−7 (ebook)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2023944311

      Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com

      Interior design by briandesign

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      PM Press

      PO Box 23912

      Oakland, CA 94623

      www.pmpress.org

      Printed in the USA.

      Contents

      FOREWORD by Dame Evelyn Glennie

      INTRODUCTION by Marilena Umuhoza Delli

      PROLOGUE

      Muffled and Muzzled

      ROAD MAPS

      1fra fra: The Quiet Death of a Funeral Singer

      2Sister, Keeper: Cut My Soul in Two and There Would Still Be You

      3The Oldest Voice in the World (Azerbaijan): Thank You for Bringing Me Back to the Sky

      4Rohingya Refugees: Once I Had a Home

      5N’golá (São Tomé): Our Ancestors Swam to Shore

      6Parchman Prison Prayer: Some Mississippi Sunday Morning

      7Saramaccan Sound (Suriname): Where the River Bends Is Only the Beginning

      8Bhutan Balladeers: Your Face Is Like the Moon, Your Eyes Are Stars

      9Taa: Our Language May Be Dying, but Our Voices Remain

      10 Comorian: All Passports Are Not Created Equal

      11 Sainkho Namtchylak (Tuva): Where Water Meets Water

      12 Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds

      13 Yanna Momina: 1947–2023

      14 Romalo Ram: Kashmir Tears: Don’t Fear the People; Fear the Road Between

      15 Himba Hymn (Namibia): Skeleton Coast Ghosts

      16 The Good Ones: Rwanda . . . You See Ghosts, I See Sky

      AFTERWORD Third World in the New World: Who Said You Can’t Go Home Again?

      EPILOGUE Stars and Scars: When Did We Stop Rooting for the Underdogs?

      EXERCISE Six Simple Daily Practices to Reclaim Your Immediate Environment

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER

      NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

      This is not intended to be an academic book.

      Should I ever write the words subaltern or libidinal in my lifetime, I expect to rightly be imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

      My goal remains impressions rather than authoritative dispatch. This book focuses on narratives, leaving the didactic material on the side (that is, mostly).

      Have the courage to make love in the light, but sing in the dark.

      For no external reward, other than the moment.

      Just for the fuck of it.

      FOREWORD

      To draw upon the belief of the highly influential American musical figure Harry Partch that the individual’s path cannot be retraced, because each of us is an original human being brings forth the observation that any creative endeavor is indeed a journey rather than a destination. Music is as complex, inexplicable, and unknowable as those who participate in it. What does participation actually mean when dealing with this kind of fluid art form? Who are the participators, the decision-makers? How have our lives, charged with the tsunami of social media outlets and expression, changed our relationship with an art form that is currently becoming less about patience or physical sensation and instead about what is in vogue, what is good, what we should be digesting in our lives?

      I am a sound creator. All my senses interact with sound because it is the brain that acts as the conductor—tying and redirecting the myriad of emotions connected with sound. Ultimately, the brain redefines how we have thought to have understood our senses.

      Some common questions I am asked are: What has been my most successful concert? What has been the high point of my career so far? What was the event where I knew I was successful? All of these make me feel a tad uncomfortable because I don’t feel any more successful than on the first day I picked up a pair of sticks. Of course, I feel I am a better and more refined musician now but that doesn’t constitute success. I don’t feel any more successful since making my first solo recording versus my fortieth or winning a school swimming badge in comparison to winning a Grammy. Success is not a word I relate to, because becoming better at something is a never-ending, patient journey. I am constantly weeding my sound garden and trying to become a better percussionist and musician. If I had to define success it would be the heightened curiosity I have been able to sustain, the wonderment in seeing a street performer or a baby handling a rattle for the first time or witnessing the great orchestras of the world or the local pub folk group. I love it all. Not necessarily because I like or dislike the music but because it touches an emotion within or I’m soaking up the emotion of the performers. The entry points can vary every time and, when there is no agenda other than keeping an open mind, the experience can be allowed to flow naturally and organically.

      The world we live in is our orchestra and each of us is an instrument within this global orchestra. Sometimes we are solo, sometimes we are part of a section, sometimes counting many bars’ rest and observing the rest of the orchestra. We are all part of this orchestra and indeed we are the composers of the remarkable piece of life that lasts forever. Music is our everyday language and I don’t believe there is such a thing as being unmusical. Music can happen anytime, anywhere, by anyone. It is the key to knowing ourselves, knowing the mechanics of the human brain and investing in the future of humankind.

      To play an instrument is but one small aspect—albeit an important one—of what music really is. Each moment presents a kaleidoscope of tempo, rhythm, pitch, texture, dynamics which connect every living soul. Perhaps this is why I’m keen to say that music is our everyday medicine. Just as food, water, shelter, and sleep are, music is completely accessible to each and every one of us, but how we choose to relate to it is something that only we ourselves can control. This brings the question of emotion and how music is a trigger to ignite emotions between us perhaps more than within us. Music forms a response to social interaction and can differ dramatically across societies and cultures.

      The collection of narratives that compose Missing Music is both a celebration of the extraordinary music and musicians that are all around us, seen by some, unseen by many; heard by some, unheard by more. Yet this compact book also highlights the crisis of representation in mass media for far too many populations and regions. We live in a world where we constantly want to feel comfortable—within seconds—and not have to work at creating a journey of discovery. We can probably all think of occasions when someone from another culture has responded unusually to us and vice versa or when another’s behavior has been misunderstood. We are driven to live in a culture where compliments are immediate to the point that they become overfamiliar. More than ever, we have the means to do our own digging into musical cultures and not be bound by perceived limitations of what the media sets. After all, what has been the most influential performances of our lives—the nursery rhymes sung by our parents? Seeing a school orchestra play? Seeing someone tap a nifty rhythm from a biscuit tin? Listening is about validating what makes each of us extraordinary. Richness is all around us in all forms and degrees. Missing Music invites us to extend the ways that we discover, interact with, and listen to the extraordinarily musical world we live in.

      After all, the world is sound.

      Dame Evelyn Glennie

      Cambridgeshire, UK

      INTRODUCTION

      by the photographer Marilena Umuhoza Delli

      I was born in Italy to an Italian father and a Rwandan mother, but it took thirty years before I had a chance to listen to music in Kinyarwanda. I’d been raised instead with cassettes sung in French—the language of the Belgian colonizers. Therefore, it was a revelation to meet for the first time the Good Ones folk trio from the Rwandan countryside in the summer of 2009 when Ian was recording Kigali Y’Izahabu (Kigali of gold), the first of the forty-plus international records Ian and I have worked on since.

      It was the very first album of original songs in Kinyarwanda to be widely distributed internationally. Multinationals and celebrities monopolize the market and silence the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1
      pFad - Phonifier reborn

      Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

      Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


      Alternative Proxies:

      Alternative Proxy

      pFad Proxy

      pFad v3 Proxy

      pFad v4 Proxy