Summary
"It's not just people sitting around quietly; funerals, for those who are often 90 or 100 years old, are a time to celebrate life in Ghana," [Colter Harper] says. "You make music constantly for days. You can go to sleep, but the music is going 24/7. People die at funerals, people make babies at funerals - it's one of the main spiritual events."
On his second visit, "I was living place to place with different people. I had random gigs I was playing every Monday night so people would take me in," says Harper. "Music is everything there - from taxi drivers honking in rhythm to making food and pounding a beat."The funerals really caught his ear: "I was studying with this violinist and we took a trip north. Waking up at 5 a.m. and following these guys from the village made me feel like I was on another planet. We went to a huge funeral - thousands of people came," he recalls. "They'd hand me a violin to play, and I'd kneel to play as they danced around me, sticking money to my sweating face."See the full content of this document
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Funeral Dancing
Funeral Dancing
IT'S A RESTLESS twentysomething's dream: Student longs to travel, student studies abroad, student returns forever changed. Thank you, higher educatio...See the full content of this document
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