Indigenous African Music Transcriptions Website Launch

"Imagine international superstars performing on Mbila, Uhadi, or Isitolotolo. How wonderful would it be if the great Amahubo Asendlunkulu, the traditional songs of the Zulu people, were taught in South Korean schools?" asks SAMRO Chairman Nicholas Maweni.

Have you ever considered learning to play the !Xuma, a San braced mouthbow mainly found in remote regions of Namibia?

The I AM Transcription Project is working to make these ideas a reality by translating African works into international music notation and making them available to the world.

The project, which has been developed by a small team within the SAMRO Foundation over the past three years, supported by the US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, has worked with over 30 music specialists to transcribe the indigenous music of the South African people.

“We drew on former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s famed words in his 1996 ‘I am an African’ speech. Quoting from this speech - the I AM project: ‘rejoices in the diversity of our people and creates the space for all of us voluntarily to define ourselves as one people," explains Maweni.

“The music is reflected in our gold and red soil.

"From the sands of the Kalahari in the music of the San, the red soil of the Xhosa and Zulu nations. And as the soil nourishes our fields and our trees, our indigenous music nourishes our culture and our identities.”

In celebration of South Africa’s rich heritage on the last day of September, the I AM Transcriptions website will be launched at midday.

The public will be able to browse numerous works transcribed to sheet-music that will be free for download from the site www.iamtranscriptions.org

“This project is the beginning of a pan-African dream, we encourage all those who have documented or will be documenting indigenous African music to contribute towards this resource by informing the I AM Project of their efforts with the mission to grow the open database,” says Maweni.