Only Connect – back to the croft

Question: How do I get from Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to All American renaissance man Paul Robeson via the Reverend George Reginald Wells (alias my dad) in less than six degrees of separation? And end up at home in the Hebrides?

Answer: Follow the musical trail…

Step One. Here’s the Qawwali master in a spell-binding performance in the video clip below of “Ye jo halkaa halkaa suroor hai”. (Go to this blog for Romanised Urdu lyrics and English translation of the basic text.) The clip takes you through a transcendental Sufi meditation on “light intoxication” in the presence of the divine. Recorded live in Birmingham in 1983 – the year I started working there – it’s a full seventy minute rendition. (I wasn’t at this performance, but did get to see him performing some years later.) If you’re in the mood, stay with it right the way through. Alternatively, after several introductory “scene-setting” verses, just check the introduction of the main theme at 5.22. The central lyric and melody are gradually expounded over the next couple of minutes, before the musical ante is raised again at 7.24. Having now clocked the tune, feel free to move on “from the sublime” straight to Step Two. But be careful. It’s quite a jump.

یہ جو ہلکا ہلکا سرور ہے

Step Two. Now check this song “Chale jaise havaien” from  the Hindi film “Main hoon na”. Recognise that tune from somewhere? Yes, it’s a classic example of the Bollywood capacity to “borrow” musical patterns that work, and “recycle” them to mass popular acclaim. Note also the location of the film, shot at St Paul’s School, Darjeeling.

चले  जैसे हवाईएँ

Step Three. Wind back the years to the Second World War. Same location. Very different ambience. This is pre-Independence India, and St Paul’s, originally an Anglo-Indian school, is in its colonial heyday – run on traditional English Public School lines, complete with the then young (but to be long-lived) school “padre” fresh out from Blighty, George Reginald Wells. Despite (or maybe because of?) his intensive choral training at King’s College, Cambridge, Dad confessed to having a poor ear for Indian musicality, so quite what he would have made of the Ustad I’m not sure, but I fear he would perhaps have been “less than impressed” by this Bollywood jollity in a setting he always looked back on with deep and serious affection, bordering on reverence. Which cues a return from lighthearted if skilfully executed fun and exuberance to something rather more spiritual.

Once in Royal David’s City

Step Four. Dad was actually the only one of four Wells brothers who didn’t get to do the opening treble solo at the annual festival of carols, but he did become a very fine bass-baritone himself, and he appreciated the talents of others too when he recognised them, which took him to Sheffield Town Hall, even before his Darjeeling days, to see and hear Paul Robeson in concert, another experience he liked to recall in later years. “Deep River” was one of his favourites, but this clip, wherever it was recorded, is worth listening to right through, as it gives an impression not only of Robeson’s singing talent, but also of his wider humanitarian drive and motivations. Often described as decades ahead of his time, was he also an early exponent of what we now call “World Music”?

Deep River (and then some)

Step Five. Here in Benbecula, I’m left wondering if Robeson’s rendition of the “Eriskay Love Lilt” (from 4.58) was Dad’s first introduction to Gaelic music, an initial Hebridean connection before meeting and marrying Uist crofter’s daughter Anna Sheonaidh ‘ic Ghilleasbaig  – “Ban Uibhisteach ann an India”?

And the rest, of course, is history…

Have I woven an unusually complex web? Well no, I don’t think so, though I’m pleased to have inlaid a couple of sparkling gems in the pattern, despite my “humble” crofting stock. If we’re all a maximum of just six steps away from everyone else, metaphorically if not literally, then we’re all capable of intricate variations on this kind of theme. It’s a great game. Just pick a couple of big names from the worlds of music, sport, politics etc, and trace a linking path through a family connection. We can all be touched by distinction or genius. Everyone should try it!

Numbers Game

Bòrd na Gàidhlig does well to title its new draft language plan “Fàs is Feabhas” (“Growth and Quality”), and the Chief Executive took pains to stress the emphasis on quality alongside quantity in a recent public consultation meeting in Liniclate.

I think I understand why people feel they need to play it when talking about Gaelic, but those of us who wish the language well need to be wary of thinking the numbers game is the only one in town. An unremitting and institutionalised focus on “growing the volume” of the Gaelic speaking and/or learning “mass” may have unwanted side effects. I don’t think I need to spell out the dangers inherent in a target-driven, “never mind the quality, feel the width” tick-box culture.

Fòram na Gàidhlig is probably as good a place as any, and maybe better than most, to keep abreast with surveys and research reports, opinion polls etc on Gaelic, and how they can be treated in the media and received and interpreted in the wider Gaelic-supporting community. Here’s an interesting string – some initial if muted enthusiasm in response to fairly arcane mathematical modelling, questioned (and not just by me) on closer inspection. And “surveys of opinion” are always good for some debate.

The danger with quantitative measures is if they reinforce the presumption that “bigger is better”. Well, it ain’t necessarily so. This piece of research, by contrast, is unashamedly qualitative rather than quantitative in focus. Indeed, a sample size of 14 might sound rather puny to some, especially when placed next to the nationwide 1,000-odd surveyed here for the Scottish Government. But, sure, we can “play games” with this one too. Given a Uist population of roughly 5,000, the population of Glasgow must be at least 100 times that, and Scotland’s would be 1,000 times the size. So, if we were to scale it up, that might imply a similar survey in, say, Glasgow would find over 1,400 Gaelic “activists/supporters” there ready and willing to participate, and a national one would uncover 14,000 spread across the country. Hmmm. That would be something…

“Omertà” says it all

Here’s a striking piece, well worth a read. Good headline, but the subtitle really stands out: “The omertà of Britain’s press and politicians on phone-hacking amounts to complicity in crime”. No understated English “conspiracy of silence” here. Full red-blooded Sicilian “omertà”! In your face, or what? No shilly-shallying about language mixing either, or worries about possible “dilution” of the English tongue. On the contrary, the choice of vocabulary is clearly deliberate and designed for maximum vigour and effect.

So much for the sociolinguistics/stylistics. Now for the content. Politicians got it in the neck last year for fiddling their expenses. We all remember the uproar. If I recall correctly we have our “ever-vigilant” press to thank for that one. (Wasn’t a disk “leaked”, presumably from one person’s computer to somebody else’s?) And now we’re all talking about the pot calling the kettle black.

Well, who are we, Joe Public, to complain? We’re the ones who buy the “filthy rags” that deal in this stuff. We can expect some brave/dumb fall-guy from the fourth estate to take a ritual hammering on BBC Question Time this week, but who in the audience is going to turn round and address their remarks not to the panel but to the rest of the audience and to us in our homes? We pay the pipers – be they politicians or presspeople. What kind of tunes have we been calling? If there’s been a “conspiracy of silence” it’s one in which the public has been complicit. Time for us all to take a look in the mirror?

Okay, we can work up an emotional lather easily enough. But it’s no use just waving the cut-throat razor in fury, like some second-rate backstreet hoodlum, at the press and the politicians. Have we got the gumption to keep a steady hand when it comes to taking the actual shave ourselves?

The Languages Baccalaureate and Paternal Pride

We’re accustomed to complaining when “the powers that be” get things wrong – and properly so, particularly where our own children’s futures are concerned. It only seems fair then, to give credit where it’s due when they get them right. So please take a bow, Sgoil Lìonacleit, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and all other agencies and individuals who have played their part in this particular success story. (Loud applause.)

Take a look at this clip from Scottish CILT:

Morag Wells, who should also take a bow, (more loud applause, cheers to the rafters, hats in the air etc) would no doubt be more than happy if I stayed silent on this matter – but paternal pride trumps that this time. (There won’t be many more occasions for me to exercise such “authority”…) Her distinctive “interdisciplinary project” that defines the Scottish Languages Baccalaureate as more than just a bundle of off-the-shelf Highers and Advanced Highers really did offer something different, outward-looking and integrative to occupy herself with in S6. That will no doubt stand her in very good stead when she moves on to university.

PS. Just one nagging question. (And no, it’s got nothing to do with whether or not she’s passed, which we still don’t know. Her previous successes in S5 have already guaranteed her a place, so in one very concrete sense it “doesn’t matter”, strange to relate.) But if Scottish schools can successfully offer this level of challenge at the senior end, then why do the universities persist in wanting students to spend at least four more years getting their first degree?

Ich bin ein Uibhisteach

I wouldn’t normally feature the same video simultaneously both here and on the Island Voices site. But I confess to a special weakness for this one – certainly not for its technical merits, shot on an ageing hand-held mini-DV camera with a grumbling motor – but I love the content. So many smiling faces, and of all ages! The Uist community at its very best that night. What a delight to see familiar faces in less familiar surroundings, and all contributing of their own talents to give everyone a good time. And what a privilege to be able to record it.

Animals last month, and now children – learning English, singing Gaelic, teaching Russian, oh, and also speaking Polish…. Inspirational stuff, but everyone was a star, including the incoming music students gelling with local youth (and the not quite so youthful…) to provide the perfect soundtrack for a great community event. A real sense of vindication for the work “ris a’ bhruthaich” back in the early years of FE/HE development here in Uist.

Is there a better place to be on a midsummer’s night than Uibhist fhèin?

Macaroni: Rich Linguistic Fare

Back from Pistoia nearly two weeks ago now, but Italian food is still playing on my mind in the shape of a particular kind of pasta very familiar to Scots: macaroni. But this is macaroni with a twist – linguistic macaroni, or “macaronic language” as Wikipedia has it.

The seemingly seismic nature of the recent Scottish elections, in which the SNP achieved what was supposed to be impossible for any one party – an overall parliamentary majority –  has been remarked upon in countless fora and media. But I’m particularly impressed by this commentary from an old Facebook friend, Ryno Morrison, who has kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.

Dàn an Taghaidh 2011

by Ryno Morrison on Tuesday, 10 May 2011 at 22:56

Diardaoin , gu tràth sa mhadainn, I started thinking of my votes
Gu dearbh cha robh e furasta, so I started taking notes
Bha paipear bhòtaidh lilac ann, with prospective MSP’s
Is iad seo a bhios dh’ ur riochdachadh, in your con-stituency

Bha fear le dath na piodse, your region’s list of choice
Gu roinneil ‘s ann bhios seachdnar ann, to give you all a voice
Agus an uairsin pàipear eile, with Yes or No for the AV
Loma làn de roghainnean, for your choices one, two, three.

Ailig beag na Nàiseantaich, is really keen to be
A Chiad Mhinisteir a rithist, he’s got more to do says he
Lion e an t’àit le poilis, he stopped charging for our pills
‘S bidh na h-oileanaich cho beartach, they won’t have any bills

Annabal nan Tòraidhean, she is sensible and prim
Ged is caol tha teans’ a Phartaidh aic, of being ever voted in
Cha bhi h-uile rud an asgaidh, we’ll need to pay our way
Tha seo reusanta is fìrinneach and brave for her to say

Tha Tavish air shàrachadh, with the marriage of ConDems
‘S tric e ‘g innse nach do chòrd e ris, the pact of us and them
Ma gheibh e steach don Riaghaltas, public spending he will trim
Cha bhi drochaid an Dùn Èideann and the trams will get the bin

Nise, Iain Grey na Labaraich, a timid man is he
An uair chaidh fear a’ bhruidhinn ris, to a pie-shop he did flee
Ma gheibh e steach don Riaghaltas, he’ll put Scotland back to on top
Bi taighean don an òigridh ann and Big Bonuses will stop

Ach tha Alba nis air bhòtadh – the peoples’ choice is SNP
Tha mhor-chuid aig na Nàiseantaich, to govern as they please
Bi Fil-ò-ro anns na h-Eileanan, the Western Isles will be all go
Le Bursday Pàrtaidh Alist’r Allan, ‘s e a nis am BIG Four-Ò

It’s great to see the macaronic tradition, which, as Wikipedia informs us, has a long lineage stretching back to Roman times, if not beyond, is still alive and kicking in the twenty-first century. ‘S math a rinn thu, Ryno! Often looked down on, particularly by those with a standardisation agenda, for me it has a true demotic, irreverent spirit, echoing in verse the natural humour and vigour evidenced in the everyday code-switching and/or mixing behaviour of fluent bilinguals like Norman Maclean. Vulgar indeed in a very Latin sense, and none the worse for that!

(PS. Why stop with bilingualism, by the way? If that was a macaronic poem, then is this a macaronic video? Never mind the quality – feel the width!)

Mi piace questo binario!

“I like this platform!” I learnt my first Italian sentence from Catherine, when she told me the story of her linguistic adventures on a trip to Italy before we’d met, let alone married. Imbued with beginner’s zeal she was determined to use what skill she had acquired in the language at every opportunity, including with unsuspecting strangers encountered in a railway station – any railway station… Funnily enough, family history does not record how the conversation developed after this powerful opening gambit. This film is dedicated to her inspirational enthusiasm.

Mi piace questo binario! from Gordon Wells on Vimeo.

A collaborative effort by participants in the recent POOLS-CX video workshop for language teachers, held in Pistoia, Italy. We aimed to teach each other something of our own languages, while learning how to make videos at the same time. Would anyone care to count the number of languages used – and identify them all? And can you identify the locations – other than Pistoia itself?

Once again we are indebted to the Italian Dub Community for the Creative Commons licensed music. It gives a necessarily patchwork film some kind of narrative unity and direction!

Italian Dub

Non parlo italiano. Non canto italiano. Ma mi piace questa musica italiana…

Pistoia and the Italian Dub Community from Gordon Wells on Vimeo.

This video was knocked together the morning after the night before. A fine convivial meal in a local restaurant, and a leisurely stroll through the town’s backstreets in balmy weather provided plenty of video material to edit. The 3-minute music track was downloaded from a Creative Commons site – http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Italian_Dub_Community, and provided a time-limited framework within which to work on the picture sequence. Possible uses? Suggestions please!

Stoneybridge Workshop Weekend

The film-making class at the Stoneybridge Workshop Weekend in South Uist made a short film about some of the classes that were being held on the Saturday. In the morning and early afternoon we worked on camera skills, and then got some experience of editing at the end of the day. Many human stars, but the oscar must go to the canine participant who brought a whole new meaning to the concept of an “archaeological dig”… Who said you should never work with animals?

Stoneybridge Workshop Weekend from Gordon Wells on Vimeo.

Technical Postscript (for the nerdish tendency): Using Vimeo rather than YouTube is a new departure for me. There’s a discernible drop-off in video quality in the embedded version, though a direct comparison with the Island Voices YouTube clips would probably not be fair, as the source files for the latter were enormous .avi files, whereas for this clip I used a much smaller .wmv file – conveniently loadable from the comfort of my own home.

The Anglovision Song Contest and La Diversité

So, the annual camp-fest is over. The Grumpy Old Man retired to his favourite darkened room for most of it but emerged in time for the voting. Actually, I do – just – remember a time when I enjoyed it in a “serious” way, back when Abba were a novelty for not singing in their own language… Apparently “about 99%” of last night’s entries were in English. Ok, maybe some slight exaggeration there, but the trend seems inexorable.

Regular trips around Western Europe in recent years have left me underwhelmed by the seeming ubiquity of Anglo-American pop music, but a trip to Cyprus last year lifted my spirits. I don’t think I heard one English song on bus or car radio all the time I was there. So, as the votes began to pile up for Azerbaijan last night I won’t say the night was filled with Eastern promise, but, having not yet heard the song, I did allow myself some optimism that the winner was going to offer something a little bit different. Oh oh!

My own vote? Well, I didn’t hear the songs, so can only comment on the voting presentation. Fantastic! Marvellous!! Stupendous night!!! What a great show!!!! Shall I go on? Well, only to say top marks to the forlorn Frenchman who manfully delivered the tally of his country’s votes – entirely in the language of that country. Amazing!!! C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre…

But here’s the rub. The anglophone craze actually does the UK no “favours” at all. The Blue effort was evidently indistinguishable in the monocultural monotone. So what’s the solution for those who would seek a return to the glory days of Sandie Shaw or (Sir) Cliff Richard? Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? We’ve got plenty other languages here. How about making 2012 the year when the UK shows some linguistic and cultural invention and enters a song in a language other than English? What is there to lose?

Someone should be getting on the phone to Julie Fowlis now.