[Fictionary] More about wodwo

[Jean-Joseph Cote]

Judith Schrier wrote:
> The instrument I described is actually the valiha, from Madagascar.  
> We own one, which we bought when we were there in 1998.
> See the pictures at  http://www.ratsimandresy.org/instruments.html#valiha
Yes!  When I read the definition, my first thought was "that sounds like 
that thing from Madagascar".  When I lived in Boulder in the mid 1990s, 
I went to several tapings of the radio show E-Town, one of which 
featured a band called Tarika, and one of the musicians played a 
valiha.  During the interview, they explained that the strings are 
normally made from bicycle brake cables, and they tried using guitar 
strings once, but it didn't sound right.  The sound of the instrument is 
very cool.

Tarika was the secondary musical act on that particular show, and the 
main act was Arlo Guthrie.  At the end of the show, the two acts and the 
hosts always perform a number together.  In this case, they apparently 
had some difficulty finding anything that they all knew, due to the 
cultural differences, until settling on "When the Saints Go Marching 
In".  Though this had the potential of being rather lackluster, Guthrie 
and Tarika had dramatically different interpretations of the song, which 
shuttled between the two on alternate verses.  It was the best thing I 
ever heard on that show, and the audience went wild.

Jean-Joseph