The last part of the tour took us to Zagora, M'Hamid and Bounou, pretty much the end of the line after which the Sahara unfolds. We stayed at Allal Yamine's amazing house and creative den in Bounou. Allal has transformed a piece of the oasis into one of the most beautiful and inspiring places you'll ever see.

I should make it clear that there won't be many, if any, pictures or videos of me playing on this Moroccan trip. For a start I don't usually take pictures of myself and even if I could I wouldn't post them because I'm seriously unphotogenic and even on a good day I look like a gype. Secondly I felt so uncomfortable at being thrown together with musicians I didn't know and then expected to play something meaningful in performance that I hid in the background. On the other hand outside of the scheduled performances I played a lot socially and enjoyed it immensely,  so undoubtedly people will be throwing some of that content into the void of social media.

Here are some more pictures. I'll also unpick two important strands which I found fascinating, one being the contrast between the African and the European musics that I encountered and the other being what I learned about life in Bashkortostan, Russia, from a musician who lives and works there. And guess what? Things in Russia are not as we're being told.

I went to Asilah to learn about African musics from African musicians. The Miracle Group from Tanger, with whom I associated frequently during the first week of the tour, played in the hotel, in the street, in the park, on stage and anywhere else where people gathered. I only know about African drumming from listening to recorded music and from books on rhythmic patterns when I've tried to piece some djembe rhythms together. This is different, being able to listen and later talk to the musicians about their amazing individual and ensemble drumming. 

I could go on at length but the most important thing I learned was that this is highly sophisticated and technical music, obviously organised but also partly improvised, played at all times with high levels of physical and musical energy and executed with ease and grace. Nothing is straightforward. There's a lot of 3 against 2 going on with 'bars' of 8 and 12 split into 2/3 and 5/7. The young player at bottom left told me about his Raquette or (I think)  keta drums, two small hourglass drums played with sticks. Everything he does is in groups of six. The complexity within that on two drums is baffling so I simply listened and learned, vowing that one day I'd acquire a couple of these drums and learn something from an accomplished snare drummer, maybe from the local pipe band. I reckon if you can hold down a few basic patterns along with some of the lop-sided djembe rhythms that you could join in, as did many of the Moroccans, and at least contribute without doing the usual white boy thumping in 4/4. At least that's the plan.

​The dancing of those beautiful girls, as you can imagine, was a joy to behold.

What I have succeeded in doing is to incorporate some of these complex patterns into my double thumbing Appalachian guitar technique but it's tricky to do spontaneously without having to count as I play. Time will tell.

These two videos are of a Moroccan Gnaoua ensemble. I spent loads of time with them socially and musically. They played constantly, morning noon and night so I can talk a little about Gnaoua as an insider of sorts. The first video shows part of the core group, plus Shingo the Japanese Qhanun player joining in. Said Kouyou is playing the guimbre, a Moroccan three-stringed plucked instrument in the bass register. He also sings solo and with the others in various call and response arrangements.

The metal percussion instruments are called 'clackers' (they are actually called that in Moroccan though I don't know how it's spelled). Apparently the music honours or expresses the pain of slaves who were forcibly moved around the Saharan region in times past. Their only instrument was the shackles that bound them. The music is elaborate, complex, sophisticated and spectacular. There's a well established Gnaoua festival every year in Essaouira down the coast add I think that some of the structural problems with this festival arose because of their straying into another town's established territory.

​The second video shows the full ensemble in traditional costume playing at an evening event. The older man on the red drum is the boss. There was an all night event (in a tiled room!!) at which he seemed to be in charge. Apparently there's an element of trance inducing in this music which makes sense if you play and sing all night at loud volumes. 

I gave up writing an ongoing commentary on the festival and tour because events became overwhelming. But I have a some observations, things that stuck with me. First I'll say that I have never come across such kindness and selfless service that I encountered from many of the people who volunteered to help us Europeans have a comfortable and enjoyable stay. I simple can't get past this. Whether it's partly the Islamic ethos of hospitality of something to do with desert people (they were the best of the best) I can't say. It was humbling and almost embarrassing when you compare what travelling Europeans have to offer. 
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I'll blog some pictures and videos soon. 

I need some time to develop this strand of my research during this trip but there was a public performance event in Asilah's garden park. West African drumming, Spanish samba bands, the ever present Gnaoua ensemble and an ensemble playing Isawiyya music from the Meknes region between Rabat and Fes. There's an element of ecstatic mystical trance in this music with rituals, ceremonies and recitations. Right up my street at the moment. Here's a taster.

And by the way I've been performing with various people, largely Europeans, in different combinations, some of it good, some of it a bit random as you'd expect having been thrown together in a foreign land.

I want to document a little my intentions or hopes for what I might be able to contribute and learn from this week’s festival of Gnaoua music in Asilah Morocco. I should have written this before but here we are. I arrived in Asilah yesterday afternoon with some time to acclimatise and adjust to a different pace of life and a constant flow of musicians and languages. 

I will of course be delighted to share my music with audiences and to contribute to the various ensembles which will gather throughout the week to improvise together. but there’s more to music than the stage. As a research project this opportunity offers me two specific avenues above and beyond documenting the musical activities in audio, images and film. 
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The first is a close-up appreciation of individual musicians, specifically musicians dedicated to Gnaoua music and most likely string players, based on the simple fact that I know almost nothing about this music apart from what I’ve gathered from the internet. I would like to find out about their background, their understanding of music generally and their chosen musical practice, the instruments, the organology, the technical aspects of playing their instruments, the scordatura, notions of melody and rhythm.
The second is an understanding of how a tradition comes to be established and disseminated, its history and evolution, how the tradition is passed on to new generations, and most importantly for me, how the tradition might coalesce with other musical traditions and hybrids like my own. 

Finally in keeping with the food or menu analogy here’s a picture from the local supermarket.