BASS GUITAR SHEET MUSIC

I sat next to the window as the bus carried me back from Pipa to Natal. I had opened the window and the wind brushed my face as I looked out.
The sun that had seared the earth the entire day had finally rolled off the edge of the sugar cane fields, leaving one of those sunsets for me as we drifted down the highway. One of those sunsets. One of those sunsets that slows down time and your heartbeat. One of those sunsets that only God himself could conjure up, with the oranges and reds of the mighty sun splashed across the sky, blending into that old day?s blues in the right way, with the perfect weighting, pace and composure. One of those sunsets that make me want to pack my bags for the countryside, even with its sweat and dust, its calloused hands and its lonely nights, just so I could sit under skies like this, as big and wide and grand as any sky should be. One of those sunsets that makes me wish that someone was sitting there beside me, bathed in the same glow, so that I could look at them and see the reflections dance in their eyes, with the confidence that many years from now, we?d look at one another, without so much as a word and remember this time and this sunset so many years ago.
Down below this sky lay the rustling sugar cane fields, cut through by small dirt roads leading to homesteads, and briefly interrupted by some ponds, small pockets of bright blue and orange, reflections of the sky above. The fields? greens were quickly shifting into black. Palm trees stood silently, black and silhouetted. Small shadowed birds flitted around the trees, dancing among the palms slicing to and fro through the sky with the wind. A windmill whirred briskly, leaving an almost solid black circle where its blades should have been. I tracked the telephone lines, sweeping up and down with a gentle grace through the blues and purples, just as the clear notes of a trumpet would sadly sweep through the silence of the evening during taps.
I soaked in the gentle warmth and grandeur entering in through the small bus window, knowing not when but certainly that the day would soon end, as always, taking its beauty with it. Replaced by tiny twinkling stars and their counterparts in the fields, the small porch lights off in the distance, of the families watching their novelas and sitting around the dinner table. These specks would barely survive through the black of the fields, with the swaying grasses and palms, sleeping birds and telephone poles, all there, silent and alone and blind. I have to hold on to this sunset, its immensity and embrace, so that in the upcoming days, with the harsh, thick sunlight and haze, and the upcoming nights, with the black and cold silence, I can hang on, push on to find myself back at the end of a day like this, with one of these sunsets, with its light illuminating my face and warm touch keeping me company.

Listening to Beirut?s Elephant Gun

Ethiopia. Bahir Dar, local restaurant.

The Massinko (also masenqo, masenko or masinqo)
Musical instrument. Wood, animal hide, and horse hair.

Probably 20th century.

The masinko is a violin-like instrument widely used in Ethiopia where it is played by secular poet-musicians rather like the troubadours of medieval Europe. These professional musicians play at festivals, family celebrations such as weddings, and in bars. Some are beggars who play in the street for alms.

The masinko is made out of wood with a sound box covered by an animal skin. The single string is made out of braided horse hair. Some ethnomusicologists think the masinko is related to a similar Muslim instrument called the rebabah. Both instruments are stringed and are played with a bow

Traditional musical instruments in widespread use include the massinko, a one-stringed violin played with a bow; the krar, a six-stringed lyre, played with the fingers or a plectrum; the washint, a simple flute; and three types of drum - the negarit (kettledrum), played with sticks, the kebero, played with the hands, and the atamo, tapped with the fingers or palm. Other instruments include the begena, a huge, multi-stringed lyre often referred to as the Harp of David; the tsinatseil, or sistrum, which is used in church music; the meleket, a long trumpet without fingerholes, and the embilta, a large, simple, one-note flute used on ceremonial occasions.

Though often simply made, the massinko can, in the hands of an expert musician, produces a wide variety of melodies. It is often played by wandering minstrels,particularly near eating houses, where the musicians entertain the diners. The rousing rhythms of the negarit were used in times gone by to accompany important proclamations, and chiefs on the march would be preceded by as many as 30 men, each beating a negarit carried on a donkey. The tiny atamo is most frequently played at weddings and festivals, setting the rhythmic beat of folk songs and dances.