Hakuna Matada good people! I wanted to take the opportunity to write my thoughts about my recent trip to Kenya, while they are still fresh in my mind. It's a fabulously underrated country, full of kind, generous people and perhaps being there for only a week wasn't near enough time to fully appreciate the place. Here's what I thought anyway:
I was contacted by a friend of a musical colleague - Manveer Singh, who is making waves for his traditional Indian classical religious music. He needed a guitarist to accompany him on his week-long tour to Kenya. Didn't take me long to say yes to that! With the support of my manager Ruby Kaul, we worked out details, got flights sorted, extra baggage capacity booked and all the paperwork folded away neatly.
Despite our best efforts, Manveer and I never actually got to practice together before the trip. I had been studying his music via one of his YouTube albums, to at least get a headsup for what to expect. I had detailed notes on chords, likely scales to use, changes, etc, etc for each of the tracks. As it would transpire, none of this would be needed but I like to try and go in prepared wherever possible. As you'll read, this was a challenge for this reason!
Indian classical music isn't something I've studied, indeed my background is western music theory. Yes, the frequency of the air to form a note is universal, but how you arrive at certain scales and chords differs greatly depending on which side you start from. Where I've played with someone like Raj Kaul in the past, we've both managed to find that certain Raags (Indian 'scales') correspond completely with some western scales, but the theory to how to form that scale is totally different. So I've always had that background in my mind, that, I may not know Indian Classic theory, but, I'm confident I can find my way once I know the key and have a minute to figure out notes and scales. This mindset would hold me in good stead on this trip.
Meeting the team:
As we were not able to meet for practice prior to leaving, my first meeting with the team was at London Heathrow in the departure area. Straight away we had good energy as we met and laughed and moved into the queue to check in our baggage! Navi on keys, Sonny on Tabla, Manny on Harmonium and vocals. We also had Baljit Singh from Journey of Compassion who is a renowned speaker and Sikh teacher, as well as his son, who's name I'll omit for privacy.
In the most rock and roll move ever, we nearly missed the damn flight! That one last snack stop nearly cost us dearly - we made it to the boarding queue to find... absolutely no one?! Just empty queuing barriers and tumbleweed, like a rejected scene from 21 Days Later. A member of staff emerged and hurried us through the boarding gate telling us the plane was waiting for us - eep.
We rushed down, totally missed that weird elevated platform thing that lets you step onto the plane and wasted more time trying to get into a lift to go down a floor... Eventually we realised the lift was a no-go, doubled back, found the way through to the correct plane, got on board, hastily apologised, bore with some mildly icy stares from some of the cabin crew and got seated. The rest of the flight was great and we arrived 9 hours later without a hitch.
Nairobi and Makindu, Kenya:
We stayed in Nairobi for a night before embarking on the long drive to Makindu the following day. We had three nights and two performances in Makindu. Makindu is a special town because it was the historic half way point on the old steam railway network between Mombassa on the coast and Nairobi further in-land. As the gradient of the land increased, Makindu was where they used to stick on another engine at the rear of the train to give it the grunt needed to make it up-hill to Nairobi.
The Indian workers imported from abroad settled here and set up community and places of worship, as in the case of the Makindu Gurdwara (built circa 1887). However, as rail technology got better, trains no longer needed a second engine and could make it through with one Locomotive, so the town lost it's importance. Sadly the temple also fell into disrepute and eventually succumbed to fire. The only thing that survived the fire was the Sri Guru Granth - the holy book of Sikhism and this coupled with a vision that one of the native Kenyans saw (men on horses in the clouds circling the Temple, landing and taking off from there), reignited the desire from the community to maintain and keep this special temple.
As it is now, the Gurdwara is a wonderfully elegant and peaceful place, immaculately kept and maintained with love. Like a palace from a bygone era. We felt amazement to get through the heat and dust of Africa only to get to a place so verdant.
Performances
The first performance was pretty tricky for me! I have a slide-in pickup for my acoustic guitar, so you can slide it into the hole, under the strings and you're able to plug the cable coming off the pickup into an amp or a sound desk. Except that it needs some sort of amplification in order to send a workable signal. Not having an amp available meant that you could barely hear the guitar, especially against the keys and drums which will always be loud. Hey ho. That's how it goes. I played throughout and gave it my best even if only the keys player next to me could make out what I was playing!
When we got to Nairobi again, this was better. For whatever reason, the mixer there seemed to accept the signal from the pickup far better, so the sound engineer was able to place me in the mix nicely.
In terms of what to play, this was interesting for me. Not knowing the Sikh religious songs or even how they work, I was in the deep end and learning quick! From what I saw, the 'worship leader' will take charge of leading the song and play certain bits with real flourish and capacity and at other times, will lead a sort of call and repeat pattern from the congregation. Identifying this helped me, as I was able to structure my playing around this movement.
What also helped was speaking to the keys player Navi, who kindly showed me the Raag of Bhairavi. From what I understand, from a western perspective, this 'scale' would have a flattened 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th. When looking at the pattern for it on a guitar, it felt to me not dissimilar from Mixolydian mode, but starting a third down. So, if placed in this way, Bhairavi starts on the third of Myxolydian. It meant I could utilise Mixolydian as well as various pentatonic scales as needed.
To visually illustrate that, I whipped this up:
This would be Bhairavi raag in D# (the red dots) overlaid by B Myxolydian. There's a lot of overlap there, so it was fun for me to find those parallels between Indian and Western music theory.
So I essentially improvised everything I played and just tried to feel the mood of the music that was being played. On the whole I think this worked and I wasn't too far off in terms of mood or what I was playing. The Blusier scales sometimes stepped out of the scale but, that's what makes them pretty. I'm not against it personally, but to someone trained in Indian classical, it might seem off putting. Part of that might be down to the type of guitarist I am - I like the guitar parts to stand out either as nice harmonies that compliment what else is going on (eg, I like playing in relative major/minors), or in a funkier sense, fitting into the gaps of what is happening.
Overall, I think we helped lead people to an atmosphere conducive to worshipping God so, Mission: Accomplished! I feel like I popped a few musical achievements this time too!
Good times
Makindu was amazing. Against everyone's advice, Navi and I ventured out from the security at the Temple to have a wander around and try to see Kenya at it's realest. In many ways we were fortunate that we were further West and inland, as I understand there are issues with terrorism further towards the East, near the Somalian border. As it was, we didn't see a hint of trouble.
The people we met were kind, welcoming, hospitable. We ended up playing pool in a shack on the roadside with a few of the lads there. I was greatly encouraged too because they played the EXACT set of rules that I know for Pool. Here in the UK, everyone seems to have their own regional variants, but Kenya showed me that the rule set I know has to be correct! This is important to me! We made friends with a few of the gentlemen on the corner of the road near to the Gurdwara too and regularly met up with them over these three days.
In Nairobi, we were staying right by Westgate Mall, which had been the scene of a senseless terror attack some years prior. It's a beautiful, forward-looking place but I couldn't help but feel sadness for what had happened, in such a pleasant place, to every day people going about their business.
I was really glad to have some amazing breakfasts in ArtCaffe, a Kenyan brand of coffee shops, one being located in Westgate. It's very modern but at the same time, felt slightly exotic and timeless. It's a happy place to spend time in and I would live in there if I lived in Nairobi.
We were fortunate enough to go on Safari too - we visited Nairobi National Park one morning and were so lucky to see lions, white rhino, black rhino, giraffes, zebras, ostriches and some were quick enough to catch a huge crocodile. Clearly I need to be much quicker around deadly predators! I did think how cool it would be that there might be a crocodile in the world where you can tell it's in close proximity by a random guitar riff that plays from inside it.
Overall, Kenya, I love you. I'm fortunate that music has led me to some of the best experiences of my life and I thank God for that.
Asante sana, Kenya!