Will Burns
SASA 19’
Blog Post
Pedi Tribe
Today we visited the Langa township in Cape Town, went to a delicious homemade lunch, and then learned about various musical instruments. We learned about these instruments from Dizu Plaatjies, who is a world renowned musician. He is extremely influential when it comes to spreading percussion related music in South Africa as well as many other countries. Dizu started playing instruments when he was five years old and he continues to be an expert at his craft at the age of 59. Dizu plays about 30 different instruments and is highly skilled at just about every one of them.
When we first walked into his “studio,” Dizu and his longtime friend/apprentice played us a few songs on the drums. After this, Dizu played us some melody’s on his wide array of instruments. When he was done showing us some of his favorite instruments, Dizu and his friend organized a beat that all of us were able to play on the drum that we had in front of us. He even had some people play a different beat so that we sounded even better. Drumming for me was a lot of fun, and I know that many of my classmates felt the same way. Personally, I could have listened to Dizu play his very unique instruments all day.
By the time that we were done with drumming as a class, it seemed as if we were all very intrigued by Dizu and we wanted to know more about him. He is a very humble man, which became obvious when he was very discreet about the fact that he has performed all over the world, and has even performed at Carnegie Hall. Someone then asked him if he is on spotify or apple music, in which he said he was. This is just a guess, but I have a feeling that he would not have mentioned that he is on apple music or that he has cd’s unless somebody asked him about it. This really stood about to me because it proved to me that his passion is making music, and that the fortunes that come along with it are just an extra reward. He isn’t caught up in selling his music to people, rather he feels that bringing joy to people and passing on his knowledge to others is what it’s all about.
I am a part of the Pedi tribe, and our research is based on art therapy during and after apartheid. Music is a category of art, and similar to the painters, writers, etc. that expressed themselves during and after apartheid, musicians left a big impact as well. Even people that weren’t musicians, and that just wanted to play an instrument for fun, were able to find music as therapeutic during a time of much discontent. One of the members of our tribe asked Dizu how art/music was a form of therapy during apartheid, to which he responded “music is what kept people smiling during the apartheid era.” These words from Dizu spoke volumes to me for many reasons. When our tribe first decided on our research topic, I just thought of art as paintings, drawings, and sculptures. I didn’t account for how broad of a term art is, and that music is something that is an art form for so many. People express themselves in many different ways, and finding something that can get you through the hardest of times is extremely important. As Dizu said, many people going through apartheid turned to music to get them through the toughest times of their lives. Coming out of that studio, I had such a different perspective of music, as I had no idea that it is truly a form of therapy for so many people.
Question: Do you think that expressing ones self through forms of art is an important way to get through a tough time? What do you turn to in times in which you are feeling sad or depressed? Why do you think that so many people struggling through the apartheid era turned to drawing, painting, writing, and playing music?
Question: Do you think that expressing ones self through forms of art is an important way to get through a tough time? What do you turn to in times in which you are feeling sad or depressed? Why do you think that so many people struggling through the apartheid era turned to drawing, painting, writing, and playing music?