Class explores the origins of world music and Lotus artists

Commentary
by Mike Leonard H-T columnist | leonard@heraldt.com
August 26, 2007

Dmitri Vietze is looking forward to teaching a class about world music
and Lotus artists this fall. He runs the publicity company rock paper
scissors inc. of Bloomington. Mike Leonard | Herald-Times
» buy this photo

 An adage often applied to Bloomington is that the world comes to you here.

From the international programs and partnerships at Indiana University and their spinoffs, to our glorious Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, there’s plenty of evidence to support claims of international flavor.

At the Lotus festival, in particular, musicians come in from all over the planet, playing styles of music and instruments that often delight audiences but leave them wondering about the history and origins of what they just witnessed.

Dmitri Vietze plans to address at least some of those questions in a class he’ll be teaching, beginning this week, for the Center for Lifelong Learning at Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington. “It’s not going to be a high-level intellectual class,” he stressed last week. “It’s going to be more geared toward what a typical person in a Lotus festival audience might be asking: What is that weird, buzzy sound I’m hearing. Where did that instrument come from and how did it evolve?”

Vietze is particularly well qualified to teach the class. His Bloomington-based business, rock paper scissors inc., provides publicity and promotional services for some of the most prominent and promising “world music” artists in the world. Clients have included South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Hugh Masekela; past Lotus festival favorite, Malian guitarist Habib Koite; and artists coming to this year’s festival (Sept. 27-30) including Germany’s 17 Hippies and 84-year-old Dominican guitarist Puerto Plata.

“A lot of people didn’t think I could do this,” Vietze said of his world music publicity firm. “When I started out, world music was seen as too narrow a niche. But I think there have been a couple of reasons for our success.

“One is that the world is shifting,” he said. “What was once a niche is now a growing genre. After all, they say that Americans of European descent are projected to be a minority in this country by 2050. So the demographics are changing.

“The second thing is that the traditional definition of world music has been expanded from what originally might have recalled African music in some people’s minds to include thousands of niches,” Vietze said. He cited everything from Bosnian punk to Portuguese song to “Germans playing Balkan music the wrong way.”

The energetic music publicist typically uses two fingers from each hand to signal quote marks around “world music” because the term is so squishy. At Lotus and other world music festivals and events, traditional Irish and American music — such as old-time string band music — also is included under the broad world music moniker.

Vietze spent his early years growing up in Nashville, Tenn., but got his real music and social immersion attending the LaGuardia High School for Music and the Arts in New York City. He worked for nonprofit groups and increasingly specialized in cultural diversity training and human rights issues in Portland, Ore., before he started melding his passion for music and cultural diversity through the promotion and publicity of world music.

“My favorite part of it all is in the stories that come out of learning about these global artists and bands. Well, that and the sounds and the rhythms,” he added with a laugh.

Vietze keeps a variety of global music instruments in his company’s office on West Fourth Street in Bloomington. One, a cajon, is a wooden box that looks almost like a stereo speaker but actually serves as a percussion instrument in African, Cuban and Peruvian cultures. He pulled out one of his stranger pieces, a 10-string mandolin-like instrument that uses an armadillo shell as a sound chamber.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have on hand the Donkey Jaws included in the title of his Ivy Tech course: “Donkey Jaws, Clay Pots and Conch Shells: the Pulse of the Planet through Hybrids, Polyrhythms and Found Objects.” The Donkey Jaws are made of the half-skull of a donkey, which, when played percussively, vibrates the teeth of the petrified animal head.

“I truly believe you learn something about yourself by learning about other cultures in the world,” Vietze said.

And the great thing is, you’ll learn a bit about several artists at this year’s Lotus festival in Vietze’s class, which will meet 7-9 p.m. on Wednesdays from Aug. 29 to Sept. 19 at Ivy Tech’s downtown campus — the old railroad depot at 301 N. Morton St. The course is $65, and registration can be secured online through the end of the day Tuesday at www.ivytech.edu/bloomington/CLL. Those interested in signing up for the class can visit the Morton Street office or call 330-6041 until noon Wednesday.

“I think it’s really cool the class is in an old railroad depot,” Vietze said, grinning. “I’m going to be talking about how people make music out of found and recycled objects in a recycled for reuse depot. It seems very fitting.”