Acupuncture Reiki II Journeying (Harner-style) Journaling I like Small trickling streams The Stone-People-Lodge I favor Herbal Cures Anarchist Principles Anti-War Activism Hitchhiking RICERICERICE Mmmmm, Coffee Oh, and most of all, dealing with my white-male middle-class Privilege
SOME VIDEOS:
Version of Kelefaba / Namuso, live:
An original piece: "Into the Wind":
A version of the traditional Alla L'a Ke:
The wedding song, performed at Lyndon St. Artworks:
Here's part of a song I wrote as a gift for a special someone:
Above you'll find my teachers, guides, and inspiration. And yes, that's a Haw River T-shirt in blue. I traded it for a "Le Maire de Pikine - est - Supporte Tyson" T-Shirt. Tyson is a Senegalese wrestler nicknamed after Mike Tyson the American boxer.
“You will never find a border between day and night but we know the difference between both. In my experience this is the same with folk music: There are no borders between the different traditions and cultures but they exist in themselves and have their individual tones and colours." MISHA ALPERIN, Ukraine
"Anarchism" is the revolutionary idea that no one is more qualified than you are to decide what your life will be. It means trying to figure out how to work together to meet our individual needs, how to work with each other rather than "for" or against each other. And when this is impossible, it means preferring strife to submission and domination. Yeah.
"We all wake up at times frightened and ill. Do not go to the
study and open the pages. Take down a musical instrument." -Rumi
One of my kora songs, Kosi Idina, is part of the soundtrack to this excerpt from a short film called "Tales From the End" by Ani Monteleone.
"I am not the musician. I just hold the instrument."
The new CD is out! It's called Wind & Stars, and it was produced with the intention of facilitating health and well-being in the world through a sense of beauty and the magical realm of wonder. This CD is a collaboration between Will Ridenour and pianist/composer Betsy Bevan, and brings together the kora with the piano to produce relaxing, floating, haunting songs. Both improvisatory and intricately arranged, this recording has captured something special.
What they're saying:
“This CD is certainly light shining and rising for the good of all. Betsy and Will have created a masterpiece in a stunning and memorable way.” David Darling, composer, cellist
“Betsy and Will successfully bring together two unlikely instruments and use them to create beautiful, moving music, a sound you will not soon forget.” Karen McClamrock, Reiki Master and Crystal Healing Teacher
“Using soothing world music rhythms, traditions and melodies, both artists reflected on sound as a conduit for a sense of wellness and healing.” United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, NC
Baluba's African Market carries my older CD in Greensboro. It's also available for mailorder on the web from CD BABY, click the album cover below. I'm still figuring out digital distro. 7 songs, 41 minutes of original kora music including some acoustic guitar compositions and a version of "Alla L'a Ke", a song vital to most traditional kora repertoires. Viola!
WHO WANTS THE (older) CD?!!!
Click on this button or the image below to be taken to CD Baby.com and to hear samples of all the songs.
...as it relates to the Kora: I come from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, and my mission is not to become an African Kora Player. That is impossible. No matter how long a canoe lies in the river, it will never become a crocodile. My hope is to bring the beautiful instrument, the music, and the culture behind it to the ears and souls that seek it, for whatever reason, learning and growing along the way. The history and traditions of the Kora must be respected, yet the scope of it's future unhindered. There's a fine line there. So that's what I'm working with. What can a white boy bring to the table of this immeasurable art?
I first plucked a dusty ole Kora at some point in 1999. I began to teach myself and took a few lessons but had no real teacher. In 2003 I traveled to Senegal and Mali for 6 weeks to learn from the source, and that has been the best thing I have ever done as a musician. Everyone should go one day, if not to play, then to breathe, look, feel, think... rethink... Today I play traditional Kora music and compose original tunes with the blessings of my teachers, Djeli Madiya Diebate from Cassamance and Djeli Fily Sacko from Bamako (student of the worldly Toumani Diabate). I have performed at weddings (in the US and in Mali), libraries, many elementary, middle, and high schools and universities throughout NC, the NC Zoo, countless multi-cultural festivals, churches, castles, coffee shops, dance classes/performances, corporate functions, private parties, & clubs. On the drumkit I have performed in 42 US states and 25 countries worldwide.
The Kora is a 21-stringed bridge-harp from West-Africa originating, according to oral traditions, centuries ago with the Senegambian Mandinka of the Kabu Empire, which encompassed parts of present-day Guinea-Bissau, southern Senegal, and the Gambia. The strings are made of fishing line and they resonate through a large, halved calabash gourd stretched with a cow hide. Traditionally, the Kora is played by Mandinka Jalis and Mande Jelis, members of a special caste of society that work as musicians and oral historians. They are walking libraries of information, artisans of speech and sound.
hi... So beautiful, that I am without worlds to say , how I feel after listenig your music... Thanks for that spiritual and magical trip... keep playing like this!!! all the best, love Violina
Will!!! if there was ever a reason to come visit Charlotte, it's this: www.southernholiday.tumblr.com we've worked so hard! and if there was ever an opportunity to play kora in a beautiful warehouse surrounded by friends from all over north carolina, it is this (sign up and play at the lock-in part of the opening!!)
Congrats on the grades smarty pants! I'm hitting the road tomorrow listening to bata ketu and getting ready for the next chapter. Hope to see you soon. Hugs! P.S. My mom says she loves your new CD. She also says any kind of supper you may like in trade for a little kora music. Maybe in September?
Personally, I hate parking lots --- but we have so many of them! Sitting there, doing nothing but heating up the atmosphere, so solar parking lots! Community-sustained, secure, renewable electricity! Bonus = community jobs! All over America! So I’m back at university learning GIS to analyze each town’s paved parking areas (Greensboro NC (pop 247,000) has 10.27 square miles of it that will power over 500,000 homes (every year) if covered with photovoltaics!) and I’m starting put_a_lid_on_it …………..……….
Saludos, solo queria compartir un videode como preparar una obra simple para prgoreso, abundancia y buena suerte...espero que la disfrutes...y que te sirva de mucho bien...recuerda la fe mueve montanas....una nota importante - debes velar la obra ya que cuando las velas se estan acabando no quieres que lo que esta en el plato se encienda con lo ultimo de la vela....
