Greetz : Fr3sh-X - X-c0d3r ( AHS )

Many thousands of years ago African villagers came up with an idea that made their communities much stronger, more creative and more likely to survive.  This was a musical idea where each community member using only one note had to weave their own rhythm pattern in between the patterns produced by the others.  This way of making music reinforces the interdependence of the members of the community while producing a miriad of melodies which enables each person to walk home whistling their own tune.

The Vuvuzela Orchestra is offering that primordial musical idea in corporate workshops.

These workshop can happen in your boardroom as easily as on a soccer pitch, can involve six participants as easily as six thousands and involve your staff in making music and extend their creativity using an idea that was used millenia ago by our ancestors using kudu horns and is now used by soccer fans using vuvuzelas.

Ideally, learning to play the Vuvuzela Orchestra should be done in a residency with a trained instructor. However sets of seven tuned instruments which can be played in a variety of ways will soon be available for purchase.  The instruments are colour coded to enable anyone without any training to take part in the music in the stadiums during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.  For fans who want a more musical 2010 experience, the instruments can produce more complex music just by applying a few simple African music making rules which are outlined in the training booklet. Each pack comes with a training CD.

Listen to “Abafana” in the “Welcome” page for an example of Vuvuzela Orchestra music.

The ancestor of the vuvuzela is an instrument named Icilongo or Mhalamhala, traditionally made out of a kudu horn. 

An album of great South African soccer songs is available from iTunes . Search for “Vuvuzela Orchestra 2010 Songs”.

Meanwhile go to the Welcome page on this site and click on “Abafana” to download a free ringtone of the real sound of SA 2010 World Cup.

Inquiries to musicman@iafrica.com

Vuvuzela Orchestra 2010 songs Album

A collection of South African Soccer songs is now available for download from iTunes.

One essential element of the 2010 World Cup matches was missing from the audio on your TV screens, that is the wonderful repertoire of songs that SA soccer fans sing.   The Vuvuzela Orchestra has produced an album of those classic songs accompanied by seven tuned vuvuzelas and including the standard vuvuzelas doing call and response rhythms in between the verses of the songs.  All the songs (except for Shosholoza, the SA Soccer National Anthem) start with the rhythm of the standard vuvuzelas which you can join if you wish to use these tracks in interactive fashion.              So take your vuvuzela and play the rhythm choruses with the music when you hear “Shaya Vuvuzela !!” (which translates as blow the Vuvuzela !)

Song listing:

Shosholoza.               The world renowned South African Soccer Anthem. (See lyrics on line)

Abafana.                    This was originally a church song which was adopted for soccer

Ngoban’abantu          A traditional song which was used for political protest in the bad days of Apartheid.

Shayangomoya          Also from traditional sources and used for political protest during Apartheid.

VuvuQanga               The Mbaqanga is a great South African musical style for dancing.

VuvuKwaito               Kwaito is a South African form of Rap. This song was a favorite during 2010 World Cup.

Vuvuzelas Make Music !!! from Pedro Espi-Sanchis on Vimeo.

This is a 6 minutes long video introduction to the concept of the Vuvuzela Orchestra with some excerpts from previous performances.

Look also below at the Orchestra performing at the PANSA auditions in Cape Town.

Vuvuzela Orchestra @ PANSA

The first reaction from people when told that the vuvuzela can make music is to laugh. When you have heard the vuvuzelas on TV the idea that they could be used to make music is quite funny.   Then comes the curiosity… could this be true ? You can decide for yourself…

The Vuvuzela Orchestra uses an age old African music making system where each person has only one note to play. Each of those notes combines with the others in the group to create melodies and chords…

“Ntaka yaka ngoboya benye”. “When you make your nest you use other birds feathers…” goes the saying.    In other words, to become human you need the help and the example of other humans. “In music we grow human”.

In the purely educational field we have partnered with the University of Cape Town, EMEP and MIAGI and have conducted workshops for some 100 teachers through the UCT Climate Awareness program, a group of 60 music teachers and 30 Shangaan dancers with MIAGI and some 200 students through an EMEP program.

In May we will be training the brass section of the MIAGI Orchestra to perform on the Vuvuzela Orchestra for their upcoming European concert tour. They will be the first overseas ambassadors for the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the first to showcase to European public the wonderful music they can expect to hear in the stadiums.

The main component of this Vuvuzela Orchestra is a group of traditional Shangaan dancers from the Limpopo with whom Pedro has been working for many years. In these shows they performed on a variety of old instruments (the Makondere kudu horns, the Zwingelengele bells and the Nyanga pipe ensembles) demonstrating the “One Person, One Note” concept central to the Vuvuzela Orchestra. This ensemble was joined by four soloists (Ngwako Manamela on vibraphone, Bheki Hlatswayo on trumpet, Peadar Long on soprano sax and Pedro on Lekgodilo flute. Two wonderful women did the singing, Kgomotso Makene and Lebo Mokomele.

See full length performance on You Tube under “Making music with vuvuzelas”

Shosholoza
is the unofficial anthem for football in South Africa. We performed the arrangement above for the Africa Day celebrations on the 27th of May in Soweto, very near the new soccer stadium that is being built for 2010.

Meadowlands
is also a classic South African song which was born in protest to the Apartheid era removals in the 50s. We have created an arrangement with a Cape Carnival feel.

Sixty Celtic F.C. fans were trained in Bloemfontein over five days learning to play and dance eight songs. The Celtic supporters are considered the best fans in South Africa.  They are so supportive of their team that they almost never loose home games. A thousand fans were bussed to Ellis Park to sing with the Vuvuzela Orchestra in support of Bafana Bafana against USA in November 2007.  The whole process was the subject of an E.Tv 30′ long documentary.