The Top 100: Moving Along

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Moving Along


Jofirsti Lungisa playing a musical bow

The Top 100 2020 contains a larger than usual number of repeats from the year before and again a great number of tunes from 2020 will be repeated again in 2021. There's plenty of different music I play but those recordings that make up the playlist from which I compile my thoughts on the origin of music is getting more established as time goes on. And so do my thoughts. The playlist is front and center of my music appreciation path. At some point when I have enough time and ambition I am going to collect and edit my writings on this subject as they appeared in this blog and other places and compile them into a cohesive paper forming a theory on the origin of music, of art, and creativity. The theory is a meditation on all the big questions concerning the origin and nature of being using insights from hundreds of others. The theory itself is far too big and broad for one person to research. The theory that is forming in my hand circumnavigates materials handily available on line and is not depending on independent research at all but rather on the implications of the sounds on the playlist. And empathy. I haven't posted much recently but have continued the work towards completing the illustrations for the Top 100 2020. The nine works shown here are all from this year and are done on 11 x 14 drawing paper. Ink is the most common material used throughout but a number of other media have also been used. Represented are numbers 45 through 53:

45: Jofirsti Lungisa – Nandel'ekhaye
46: San, Tin Can Bow Solo
47: Yeyi "Hut Song" by thirteen young girls and children from Cameroon
48: Norma Tanega – You're Dead
49: Ya'ak Keodaeng and Ya'Seu Keodaeng – Teum singing
50: Sun Ra and His Akestra featuring June Tyson – Space is the Place
51: Nellie Echalook and Rebecca Natialuk – Katajjait
52: Grande danse, ahidus by a mixed chorus of Ben aissa Berbers
53: Bell'ilba (lullaby) by a Kel ansar Tuareg mother