40 Days ~ v i r t u a l WORLD TOUR of MUSIC

This virtual tour began with the initial crowdfund (via kickstarter) for the Ureuk World Music House which lasted 40 days.  Each day is a look at a different musician in a different country playing a different instrument!  Whew ~ it's quite a journey. . .  가자! चेलिये ! Let's Go!
(For more info. about the Ureuk World Music House visit our sister blog www.annachip.blogspot.com and click here INDIEGOGO to get in on the action + the gift world music compilation, Kangnam Style socks, or traditional-style silk cushions.)

Day 40 ~ DAEGEUM

This is a picture of Sang-Woo Kang, my "sabunim" (master teacher), playing daegeum bamboo flute in the 

Ureuk World Music House.

To hear his music, and his thoughts about Korean traditional music and how he feels playing in a hanok,

click on the link to watch the video filmed in the Ureuk World Music House in December 2012.

THANK YOU for joining this Musical World Tour, hopefully you have enjoyed the musical explorations of these 40 days as much as I have.  Leave a comment to contact us about the Ureuk World Music House restoration project, and LIKE

the page to join our online community!  www.facebook.com/worldmusichouse

There are more musical journeys ahead ~ and hopefully one day you can join us at the stage of the Ureuk World Music House in Chungju, South Korea!

Day 39 ~ Korea Week ~ TAEPYEONGSO

The instrument above accompanied the King on all walks.

The typical taegpyeongso is a small reed instrument with a sound that might pass for  saxophone.

Learn more here - KBS World Radio ~ Sounds of Korea

This is a video of taepyeongso solo with a small traditional ensemble.

And, here is a taepyeongso playing with an entire traditional orchestra!

Day 38 ~ Korea Week ~ BUK

Buk is one of the main Korean percussion instruments. (wikidetails here)

An all-percussion traditional "genre" of music is called 'Samulnori" and includes the buk, the hourglass drum chang-gu, the small gong gwengari and the large gong jing.  

Chungju has a famous samulnori group, "Mulgae."

This samulnori video opens with buk.

A famous cutting-edge Korean percussionist who seems to have found the overlap junction of traditional music and modern musical yearning is Choi, Sori.  

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 37 ~ Korea Week ~ HAEGEUM

Haegeum is a 2-string bowed instrument.  

It is made of 8 materials: gold, rock, thread, bamboo, gourd, soil, leather, and wood.

The haegeum has a 4-stringed North Korean sister, the sohaegeum.

This is a video of a haegeum solo accompanied by piano; part of a haegeum playlist.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 36 ~ Korea Week ~ SAENG HWANG

Saeng Hwang, the instrument I find most mystical and other-wordly of all Korean instruments,

 is a wind instrument made of 17 bamboo pipes; a prototype of the pipe organ.

In this video Hyo-Young Kim is playing saeng hwang with a singer, the piece is aptly called 

"Dream Within a Dream"

A dear friend, Jaron Lanier explains how this instrument is actually the origin of computers in his TEDxSF talk, and he plays the Lao cousin of saeng hwang, the Khaen.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 35 ~ Korea Week ~ KOMUNGO

This famous painting by 18th century artist known as Hyewon depicts a woman playing komungo.

The komungo has raised bridges (like other Korean instruments), and raised frets (unlike other Korean instruments).  There are 6 silk-twisted strings, and it is plucked with a bamboo stick.

Komungo Sanjo by Sun Hee Lee.

 This is an extraordinary art/tango-esque/komungo video from the Geomungo factory!

For something a little trippy, here's Jin Hi Kim's electric komungo.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 34 ~ Korea Week ~ AJAENG

For the final week of our V I R T U A L  World Tour of Music we are going to come back to where we begin, South Korea, and spend each day with a different traditional instrument!  Today is ajaeng, an 8-stringed, bowed instrument.

An ajaeng "sanjo" concert with Ilgoo Kim, accompanied by chang-gu drum.   This is the very piece I started to learn when I studied the ajaeng sanjo.  Sanjo is described by some as 'Korean jazz.'  What do you think?!

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 33 ~ Brazil (Queixada de burro / Donkey Jaw)

One last natural and obscure musical instrument ~ the Queixada de burro (Portuguese), or quijada de burro (Spanish), or donkey jaw, is used as a rhythm instrument.  When the first molar is secured, the other teeth will never fall out...just rattle.

Solo Jawbone Performance

Jawbone Duet

Interview from a Boston musician about her musical donkey jawbone.

While in Brazil mood, if you're up for a black and white Brazilian classic - Assault on the Pay Train - is exquisite like only old movies can be; delicate and subtle, stunning mix of great cinematography, music, and great acting....particularly the lead actress, a dear friend who 50 years later exudes the same intense grace, passion, and beauty, Luiza Maranhao.

1962 Brazilian Movie - O Assalto ao Trem Pagador

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 32 ~ Bolivia (Pan Pipes / Zamponas)

This instrument comes from the Andes Mountains.  Before you pick one up and try to play, consult the wiki-how page about how to play ~ there's some good advice to help you avoid getting dizzy!
AFTER reading that, enjoy this color-coded instructional video!

For a little zampona dance in the forest . . .

Native American flute + panpipes  . . .

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 31 ~ USA (Stalacpipe Organ)

The world's LARGEST instrument, at 3 and 1/2 acres, it took over 36 years to make ~ or 400 million & 36 years, if we count how long it took for the stalactites to form . . .

Read all about it here at the Luray Caverns website!

Enjoy the 2 minute feature on "Ripley's Believe It or Not," where you can hear the angelic tones.

Anyone else want to go?  I want to create a sarangi stalacpipe organ duet!

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 30 ~ Peru (Peruvian Whistles)

In general there is a fine line between musical instruments and instruments for altering consciousness.  The Peruvian Whistling Vessels clearly fall on the side of 'power to induce an expanded state of  consciousness'.

More information abounds about the whistles, the history, the experiences, the potentials, the way to purchase them . . .


This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 29 ~ Polynesia (Nose Flute)

:)  For something a little obscure, the Tongan Nose Flute . . .

The sound of noseflute ~ Are you ready for this?!

If you want to play your very own...there's a man making them out of CELERY!


This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 28 ~ Australia (dijeridoo)

A hollowed out piece of wood that seems to be able to permeate every cell of the body and shake the world.  No bows, no holes, nothing to push or fret - seems easy to play, right?!  Well, only if you can CIRCULAR BREATHE; which takes some serious dedication to get the hang of.  Hats off to you dijeridoo players!

The most common actually used word for dijeridoo, by native Aborigines, is YIDAKI.  
This instrument is very popular around the world, and there are players everywhere (even in Chungju sometimes), here is a video/sample played by Ryka Ali.  

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 27 ~ Crete (Lyre)

We all have the romantic notion of the Greek lyre being played by the Gods and Goddesses on ancient vessels, but little did we know that there is another very different instrument called the lyre on the islands - the island of Crete, actually.  And, yes, it does look a bit sarangi-like with that bow!

A video direct from the Luthier's shop! 

This example from TV in Crete has gorgeous singing, lyre and oud.   

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 26 ~ Norway (Hardanger Fiddle)

A less-stringed cousin of the sarangi? 
(Not only for it's sympathetic strings, but for it's history of intrigue and controversy . . . )  

The amazing vistas of Norway accompany the sound of the fiddle on this video!

Away from the fiddle a moment, but not away from Norway ~ enjoy this Nordic Lullaby by our friend, Ole Andreassan.

Back to the fiddle, & A Whole List of Lovely Links to click on:

The Hardanger fiddle is often played along with foot stamping, as it is in this video from a Folk Museum which features 2 young dancers.  

A little fiddle from the kitchen.

What is better than a Hardanger Fiddle?  Why 8 Hardanger Fiddles, of course!  

A jolly bearded man w/ plucking technique.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 25 ~ Ireland (Harp)

The harp has long been my favorite instrument, like a beckoning of angels it is. . . 

Enjoy the healing harp music of our friend Cheryl Angela.

If you want a whole morning or evening of harp, here is a beautiful 2 hour medley of different harpers.

And, for a little Lady Gaga on harp by the harp fantasy twins . . .

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 24- England (Glass Harmonica)

Guaranteed the most beautifully surreal 8 minutes of your day :)

There are several special instruments around the world which have been considered so powerful that they can connect the player or listener with other-worldly spheres, this is definitely one of them.  The glass harmonica is said to have originated in England, created by a man from Scotland.  Glass bowls revolve on a shaft, and when touched with watered-fingers they ring in much the same way a crystal glass resounds when played.  Ben Franklin (pictured below with his invention the Glass Armonica, was known, among other inventions, for creating his version of this instrument.  

again ~ Guaranteed the most beautifully surreal 8 minutes of your day :)

This video is a performance dance piece I directed, filmed by Kisoon Choi in the Ureuk World Music House (pre-restoration) in December 2012, with a soundtrack of Glass Harmonica played by my dear friend Darius Kauffman.  It is called "Communicating with the Past" and is an expression of people in the past wanting to experience something beyond what they know (shedding their traditional clothes), and the people of the present wanting to experience what was in the past (putting back on traditional clothes).  

The glass harmonica has been used as a particular vehicle for communication with ancestors, so it perfectly fits this theme of reaching out with curiosity and gratitude to the spirits and ancestors that lived in the traditional hanok (house), and Ureuk who inspired the creation of the World Music House.

About the Glass Harmonica

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 23 ~ Russia (Balalaika)

A triangle and 3 strings . . . in all sizes!

Wiki-History Link!

If you need something to get you up and dancing, these folk songs should do the trick!

And for some Paganini on balalaika?!

Russian soldiers play for the Pope!

A really fun old movie love song, probably balalaika must be somewhere in the mix.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 22 - Croatia (Sea Organ)

From mother nature herself, today's instrument is the Sea Organ!  From the website about 10 weird instruments I came to know about the ultimate water instrument, a musical pipe organ that is played by the sea!  The SEA ORGAN, or the Wave Organ.  There is a similar instrument created at the Golden Gate National Park edge.

This is a fun video that shows the organ in action with a light show! 

"Waves create random harmonic sounds by way of tubes of varying size located underneath the structures. As the waves move in and out of these tubes the air likewise is pushed in and out of the tubes creating random sounds that are heard through openings on the surface / walkways of the structure. Like The Aeolian Harp this 
instrument's music is truly a composition created solely by nature."

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 21 ~ Switzerland (Alp Horn)

Having never heard a performance of the alphorn, I had no idea that the it actually plays more than one note.  Amazingly, though there are no holes to change the pitch, the alphorn can get 20 different notes using overtones of the main note (because it is 8 feet in length and has such a low note).

Here is a spicy video of alphorn, tights and all, with a background of mountains.  GUitars and accordian join the horns a little ways in.

And here is another nice video, perhaps a TV special, with beautiful sweeping views of the mountains.



Guess what, alphorn can even be played in HEELS :)

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 20 ~ Hungary (Hurdy-Gurdy)

A quaint mix of something between a fiddle + a bagpipe, the Hurdy-Gurdy is thought to originate somewhere between Europe and the Middle East around 1000 A.D.  By the early 20th century, most types of hurdy-gurdies were "extinct," with a great exception being the Hungarian variety, called Tekerolant.  At one time hurdy-gurdy playing was basically outlawed in the Soviet Union.  For more on the interesting history of this instrument, click here.  The hurdy-gurdy has a revolving wheel with rosin, that hits the strings as a violin bow would, including drones, and the main body has a keyboard to control the notes.  

This is a sample of Hungarian hurdy-gurdy 

This is a really great website with photos and stories and links to audio about hurdy-gurdies and variations on hurdy-gurdies throughout history.

And, here is a great Meideval rock n roll, English hurdy-gurdier teaching how to play.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 19 ~ Greece (Tsabouna)

The Tsabouna is the Greek version of bagpipes, without the drones.  It is made of goatskin, and inflated by blowing into the mouthpiece.  At the other end of the instrument is a flute which is played with the fingers.  It was invented by Greek shepherds some 2000 years ago.

ENJOY LISTENING HERE

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 18 ~ Italy (Chitarrone)

Talk about an "axe," at 6 feet tall, the chitarrone, a large bass lute, or archlute, developed in Italy just before 1600, is quite formidable.  It was used to accompany singing.

 For a romantic candle-lit listen to chitarrone, click here.

The chitarrone had six to eight strings running over the fingerboard to a pegbox (the part of the instrument in which the tuning pegs are set) positioned midway in an extended neck. The instrument had six to eight additional bass strings, or diapasons, lying off the fingerboard and running to a second pegbox at the end of the neck. Having a sonority approaching that of the contemporary harpsichord, it was used as a ... (100 of 109 words)   http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/113313/chitarrone

For another listen, under the name tiorba (or theorbo), click here.

Through the late conductor and music historian Newell Jenkins, and the Clarion Music Society, I had the great honor to sing with a chitarrone as a soloist at the Kaye Playhouse when I was 19.  We performed Cavalli's Vespers to Mother Mary.  Though I don't have a copy of my own performance, here is a very lovely youtube performance of the solo piece "O Quam Suavis" just with chitarrone and voice (the only soprano solo without the chorus and other instruments).  

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 17 ~ Morocco (Lotar)

 Heat up a cup of mint tea, and click here to enjoy the sounds of North Africa with this video of the Moroccan guitar-esque LOTAR.

As Moroccanmusic.Com tells us, the Lotar is a 4 or 5 stringed lute with a fat round neck and hollow goat skin covered body.  Sometimes the body is made of a tin soup bowl!  Lotars have a stacatto banjo like tone that is often complimented by the more flowing sound of the violin-like rebaba.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 16 ~ Madagascar (Valiha)

Somewhere between a harp and a guitar, the Valiha is the national instrument of the amazing island of Madagascar.

This is a fascinating website about different World Music instruments.  (Scroll down just a tad to Chordophones where you will see the valiha, and there are audio samples.)

My love of Madagascar and first siting of a Valiha happened in Brussels via N'Java, a band of Malagache siblings who play fast, flowing guitar (perhaps in a style created from the valiha) as a backdrop to strong chathartic other-worldly singing.  Here is a beautiful music video of N'Java!    And, another, also with scenes from Madagascar, by Monika N'Java called Reolo.  

It has been my ultimate artistic pleasure to visit with Monika, and many of her musical siblings, several times, and even to join them in the studio singing Indian-esque vocals for a kind of dance hit (I heard it was played in all of the coolest clubs in Madagascar).

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 15 ~ Nigeria (Dundun - Talking Drum)

I first heard the talking drum played by my Professor Milford Graves at Bennington College, I thought the world was splitting open.  Professor Graves is from New York, not Nigeria, but he plays the talking drum and is a master percussionist who has immersed in the rhythms of the world's amazingly varied cultures.  He also heals using the understanding of sound and astrology and Oriental Medicine to bring people back into healthy rhythms.  

(I'm not sure if the talking drum in this picture is from Zimbabwe or a neighboring country.)

The talking drum is nicknamed for it's similarity to tonal language (such as the Yoruba language of South Western Nigeria).  By pressing the leather cords, and changing the tension of the skins on both sides of the drum, the pitch changes in a way that fairly mimics speaking.  

Listen/Watch the:  Yoruba Dundun Talking Drum Ensemble

For Some Far Out classic Milford Graves free jazz music action, click here!

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 14 ~ Ghana (Gome)

* The GOME is a deep bass drum which the musician actually sits on and uses both Hands & Feet to play ~  WATCH HERE  

(The Gome is on the right, on the left is perhaps an adowa peg-tension traditional Ghanian drum; perfect complement to the bass with a unique, higher, mellow sound.)

The Gome drum was introduced to the Ghanaians by a group of Ga people in the 1940's, when they returned home to Ghana after a period of work on the island Fernando Po in Equatorial Guinea.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdYYiX8WucI

Now, to get you ON yOuR feet & DANCING ~ here is some amazing EWE Drumming!

And, to CHEER your DAY ~ This is a happy percussion ensemble playing in a park in Ghana.

Though I haven't been to Africa yet, I have had a strong connection, especially to Ghana, since I was 10 and met my best friend, Yao.  Yao, the great grandson of the former King of Ghana (Yao humbly denies being ROYAL as the King's position rotates through the main ethnic groups, rather than following the line of heredity ~ whatEVAH, his boisterous spirit and gushing heart are as royal as things get) and I decided that we had been twins in Morocco in a previous lifetime...so we go way back before our Chutes and Ladders Board games when we were 10.  On my daily walk home from school (where Yao's house was conviently half-way between school and my house), I stopped in to get my daily dose of Africa - the rhythms and music coursed through my blood as amazing Ghanaian singing loudly flowed out of the speakers in his living room day and night,  plus (how I wish it was around the corner from my house now) super spicy and delicious food was always steaming ready in the kitchen, and the gloriously booming voice of Yao's poet father, Vincent, and the exhuberance of his mother, Peace, were always welcoming me into this beautiful other world.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 13 ~ Zimbabwe (Mbira)

The Shona people of Zimbabwe consider the MBIRA a sacred instrument.

"In Shona music, the mbira dzavadzimu (“voice of the ancestors”, national instrument of Zimbabwe) is a musical instrument that has been played by the Shona people of Zimbabwe for thousands of years." (Description continues here at Diasporicroots.tumblr.com)

Listen to the Mbira playing/singing of Newton Gwara HERE.

Here is a nice visual introduction to Zimbabwe with mbira music and singing.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 12 - Mali (Kora)

KORA is the 21-string West-African sister to the harp.  This link opens to gorgeous strands of Kora music played by Toumani Diabate which you can enjoy while viewing gorgeously colorful pictures of him playing kora!

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 11 ~ Nubia (Oud)

One of the world's greatest openers of hearts and sonic universes is the late Hamza el Din of Nubia (an ancient land of the Nile River, in the south of Egypt and the north of Sudan); pictured with him is his 'Nubian accented' OUD.

Enjoy Hamza el Din's Music with Oud HERE

The first time I encountered Hamza el Din, he was laying out a prayer rug on a fire escape.  There was a hint of 'homeless/at-home-with-the-world' as people pushed past him into the back door of the concert hall where performers where ushered in to do sound checks.  Yet, already I could feel his prayer ringing in my heart.  The same people who had pushed past the small figure on the fire escape were bowing effusively at what could have been a high-powered lightbulb but was actually Hamza el Din now white-turbaned and with flowing white robes.  His performance was spellbinding even before his first notes, with his first breath.

Several years later I was fortunate of circumstance to be staying with a friend who was recording Hamza el Din's final album.  The glow surrounding Hamza el Din, palpable joy, was radiating deeply, and as he played I felt the presence of hundreds of his Nubian ancestors sitting in a circle around us.  Later that evening the ancestors were back onstage as he opened for the Grateful Dead reunion concert.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)

Day 10 ~ Turkey (Ney)

Though footsteps of all great journeys are likely to intersect an ambling ancient track of a Sufi mystic, there are a wealth of tracks connecting us to the ecstatic dervishes of Turkiye and the sacred breath of the NEY flute that accompanies the poetry of the first whirling dervish, 13th century poet Mevlana Jelaluddin RUMI.

The NEY is a reed flute which often accompanies whirling ceremonies.  Here is a beautiful piece played by Bilgin Canaz - Turkish Ney Artist




The famous Rumi poem about the ney ~
Listen to the cry of the reed flute
Listen to its song of separation:

Ever since I was cut from the reed bed
I have made this crying sound
and made men and women weep with me

I need a heart torn by separation
So you may understand the pain of loves desire

Whoever has been taken from his Source
Always longs to go back

Listen to the cry of the reed flute
Listen to its song of separation

A great version of this song was recorded by my beloved friends BELOVED, a gorgeous world music ensemble I was a part of, and miss dearly as we all headed for different quadrants of the globe.  There is an audio clip you can download, and you'll notice set amidst the ney and amazing vocals is a hint of sarangi :)

My personal journey to see the whirling dervish sufis of Turkey, had me on an uneventful 12-hour train ride from Istanbul to Konya.  At the 11 and 1/2 hour point, the silent man sitting next to me suddenly said with a grand gesture across the aisle, "That man is a dervish, follow him at Konya."  It turned out the man was a school teacher; a kind one who helped me find a hotel and dropped me at the tomb of Mevlana.  The walk back from the tomb was the fateful one, where against a whole line of defenses I finally ended up in a carpet shop whose owner was a dervish and brought me along a winding alleyway to a secret gathering of 3 generations of real-before-my-eyes whirling dervishes and musicians.

This 40-day Virtual World Tour of Music correlates with the World Music House kickstarter crowdfund. (Click the orange words for more details!)