by blavonski » Thu Feb 02, 2017 11:26 am
Hi Jorge,
That sounds interesting.
I’m also aware that there were situations of the sort that you describe and very few and far between, as well as the fact of some Africans having integrated themselves into late 19th and early 20th century Germany after deciding to remain following their visit here, among other reasons, as exotic attractions and participants in the African Villages that were a colonial Propaganda effort throughout Europe in the 19th century to convince the public that Africa needed to be civilized etc. Also, I think it is widely acknowledged that, when people of African descent, or any other non European person plays European classical music in that tradition, this association doesn’t make it African or Asiatic diasporic music.
At any rate, my point is that, Germany has no history of active, recognizable African diasporic culture that has emerged as a result of a consolidated population of African descendant peoples having merged their cultural forms and aesthetics with preexisting German-European ones to any degree of that which we have in the Americas and the Caribbean. This is also the reason why there is no vital and active Hand drum culture here. Of course there are the ubiquitous Djembe drum circles and lessons and such, but no such vital and active cultural forms like you have there in central park Rumba or in L.A. etc..
Whatever African Diasporic music that has up until now been introduced and or integrated and assimilated into German society has been so established by direct importation of particular genres or styles and cultures, it is not an intrinsic outgrowth of and expression of an Afro-German cultural phenomenon. Hence, Germany possesses no historically intrinsic cultural relationship or identification to or with the making of African diasporic music or musical instruments that could, (at the time some makers began experimenting with AfroCuban drum making), aid in an instrument makers conception of how such instruments could or ought to authentically be designed and made and sound.
Now, of course if the maker of Sonor or meinl drums had growm up in Cuba or any of the short lived German colonies and had been exposed to such music and instruments and decided as an adult to return to Germany to build these drums, well that would be another interesting story. But, that is not the case here.
Good Vibrations,
Mr. Blavonski