African music – listen in!

There is something about African rhythms and harmonies that delights my ear. I hear it in Brian Kieran’s video of St Jude’s which features the clear voices of the children in many places.

In recent years these rhythms, tunes and harmonies have come to the wide world through performers like Paul Simon and through the whole World Music scene. Now, of course, we have Web 2.0 with its user-generated content.

A great place for musical browsing is YouTube. You can drop in there and put ‘Tanzania’ into the search box to find the latest works tagged ‘Tanzania’. Try it again for ‘Tanzanie’ and you’ll get a slightly different crop of works.

Here’s a favourite of mine from this past week. The clip is titled the Best Swahili Church Song Ever. It has been viewed 3,900 times and favourited 22 times – so there are lot of people who like this kind of music!



The School of St Jude aims to support the best elements of Tanzanian culture, while introducing some core Australian values. Music is a strong element in Tanzanian culture and it is great to see it weaving its way through school life at St Jude’s.



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Upskilling and YouTube

Nothing compares with buzz of a good, meaty learning curve.

My latest venture has been to learn a bit about video editing so I can put video about the School of St Jude on Youtube. Why? Cos it will be cool if lots of people can SEE the school, LISTEN to the kids and FEEL the impact the school is making.

The kids are on a learning curve at St Jude's, and all of us who support the School are figuring it out as we go along. We take the skills we have learnt as teachers, builders, architects, business people, marketers, administrators, etc, etc, and we apply them to this amazing project. Nothing is like it used to be, so we have to adapt our skills and learn heaps. What a buzz!

Here's the first fruit of my latest self-tutorial.



This is a clip from the DVD about the school that was distributed with Gemma's book. It was made by Brian Kieran, Mary-Elaine's brother, in April 2007. He's a clever chap, isn't he?

Check it out. It's only two minutes – you'll hear the lovely clear voices of children singing the school song, see the school at the foot of Mt Meru and hear Gemma talking about the very beginning of an idea.

More to come! As time permits.




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