MEDI1TV Afrique : #Chronique_culture / Interview avec le chercheur en organologie Michel Ndoh - 29/11/2024
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00:00Welcome to Mediane TV and Zoom in this chronicle on musical instruments on the African continent.
00:16And to talk about it, I have the pleasure and honor to have with me Michel Ndo, he is a researcher in organology.
00:23Michel Ndo, thank you very much for accepting our invitation.
00:26So just behind us, we can see a multitude of instruments in Africa.
00:31What can we say today about this research that you do not stop on these instruments?
00:37First of all, what I want to say is that it is exciting, it is rich, it is varied.
00:41It aims to tell the history of Africa through traditional musical instruments.
00:48It is made up of four main families of traditional musical instruments.
00:54Stringed instruments, instruments whose sound results from the play of one or more strings.
01:01Membranophones, instruments with skins, so membranes.
01:06So the sound results from the play of this membrane.
01:09Areophones, instruments whose sound results from the push of air through a cavity.
01:14So we'll see later that you're certainly going to take a picture.
01:18But finally, we have idiophones, instruments whose sound results from the play of matter itself.
01:27So know that your body is already an idiophone.
01:30When you clap your hands, it's the sound of an idiophone.
01:34So Michel Ndo, we had the opportunity to meet at SUERA to talk about these musical instruments.
01:43And it turns out that African music has this specificity,
01:50that it continues to occur with old instruments, some very, very old.
01:57Is it precisely the specificity of this African music,
02:00it is the fact of protecting these instruments of music so old and so diverse?
02:06So our goal too, and certainly as you have said so well,
02:11is to protect instruments that are on the verge of extinction.
02:14But not only protect them, but bring the youth today,
02:19that is, the younger audience, to use them in their musical production.
02:24Even if we have to develop them, give them a little more depth.
02:28But at the same time, understand that the traditional musical instrument
02:32is a vector between man and ancestry, a communication vector.
02:39So it allows man to cross and reach beyond through the sounds it can produce.
02:46So it's a tool, how can we say that, of cryptocommunication.
02:52There are many instruments that are there to allow man to have a relationship with the beyond.
02:58That's how Africans look at these things.
03:01But at the same time, we must remember that we also have a challenge,
03:06it is to realize that it is thanks to nature that we produce traditional musical instruments.
03:13Because we have the flora, we have the fauna, we have the soil and the subsoil that produce all this.
03:19But precisely, our common fight today is to bring the public authorities
03:25to put into practice a policy of management of our environment.
03:31Without the environment, there will be no more of these instruments that you see.
03:35This is important.
03:36So, for example, if you no longer have the skin of a camel,
03:46if you no longer have the bones of a goat, you no longer have the ghembri.
03:49If you no longer have the wood of a walnut tree, you no longer have the ghembri.
03:54It's the same for other stringed instruments, such as the mvet,
03:57where you are going to have calabash.
03:59Without calabash, there is no more of this instrument.
04:02So it's not just a game, it's a challenge.
04:06A very important challenge that has to do with ecology,
04:10so the environment overall, and us humans.
04:13So, Michel Ndeo, in this quest and this search for these African instruments,
04:18the continent is huge, there must be thousands of instruments.
04:22If there is one instrument that you have found,
04:25that you want to make last for eternity, what would that instrument be?
04:31You're embarrassing me, because I love them all.
04:34I love them all.
04:35But I really like stringed instruments,
04:37because stringed instruments are, overall, epic instruments.
04:42They tell epic tales, they tell the story of Africa.
04:45So, all the instruments in all the countries you see,
04:49all the epic instruments are very important.
04:52All, and mostly, stringed instruments.
04:55And they don't come from today, they come from ancient Egypt,
04:58where the harp was already used.
05:00And the harp was one of the major instruments
05:03that the artists of that time always used.
05:08Michel Ndeo, thank you very much for accepting our invitation.
05:12I remind you that you are a researcher in organology of history,
05:16so instruments of music.
05:18Thank you very much for accepting our invitation.
05:20Thank you for this honor that you give me,
05:22for this sharing that I also do in Africa and all over the world.
05:25Thank you very much.
05:26Thank you, dear viewers, for your loyalty.
05:29Stay with us.
05:30The information continues on our different channels,
05:32Médien TV Arabic, Médien TV Africa, Médien TV Maghreb,
05:36and of course on our digital media, medianews.com.