Event Management at my Department: The Outcome of hard work is just amazing

Last weekend was one of the most interesting weekends of my life. Our department, SENA, had been working hard preparing for its spectacular annual event, the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship Competition. This included among other things, preparing music score sheets, attending the first stages of the competition (the Intermediate round), preparing the SAMRO/SENA brands banners, answering important phone calls, travelling to and from the University of Johannesburg's Arts Centre (where the event was going to take place), and doing occasional archiving between the preparations.

Saturday 23 August was the day of the final round of the scholarship competition. People came in large numbers to see their favorite candidates. The standard of competition was high and everybody looked stunning. Food and drink was plenty, and of course I enjoyed networking with new people. The competition ended with Cobus Vander Merwe (Classical Flautist) and Michael Bester (Jazz Guitarist) as winners. Congratulations guys. You staged some electrifying performances.

To Wowers, sorry I forgot to invite you, but I think you have seen the screening of some of the competition’s performances on SABC 2 and E-TV when the winners were interviewed. Next time, I will definitely invite you. It is an event not to be missed. SAMRO/SENA is doing a great job in uplifting the standard of music in South Africa and you (Wowers) surely would like to see what we do. You will be cordially invited next year. THAT’S A PROMISE.

Miss you Guys.

To Noelene Kotze and the SAMRO/SENA Department

I just want to thank you and the whole SENA team for all the support you have given us since the day we started our internship at SAMRO. The workplace training and support you have given us was just amazing, and in this regard I would like to express my deepest indebtedness to you guys. We owe you an immeasurable debt of gratitude we can never repay, for you have gone the extra mile in helping us adapt to the world of work. We could not have coped without your support and I am certain that our Supervisors at the Wits Graduate School for the Humanities and Social Sciences know that. It is with great pleasure that I will concurrently be writing to them to let them know that our internship has been successful, that the support you have given us was just remarkable, that without you we wouldn’t have made it. Thank you SENA, for this opportunity. We are looking forward to having more wonderful working experience with you for the next six months.

We are indeed very grateful for the opportunity you have given us. We promise you more hard work for the department.

Thank You

Vorter/Kgomotso.

The New Project

This week, my manager, Andre Le Roux, has once again given me another wonderful opportunity to exploit my research skills at SAMRO. Besides having enthusiastically jotted down a few things, I have already secured interviews with a Jazz band in Soweto. I am very happy about my progress so far, and though still negotiated, the project I am doing is quite a massive step which will benefit, or rather reduce financial burdens on live bands performing in Johannesburg.

I will be submitting a short report on Thursday and I’m glad I have something to talk about, and after the interviews on Tuesday, I will be having more work to present.

My Short Research Report to the SAMRO/SENA manager, Andre Le Roux.

I finally finished the report and handed it to the manager on Tuesday, and I am so glad he was impressed by my efforts. I have already had some of the best comments from SAMRO staff members he had shared the report with for general commentary, including the CEO. In this regard I want to take this opportunity to thank Andre for proudly sharing the report with other SAMRO staff members. This keeps me motivated and I will always try my best to perform to the best of my ability. It is an encouragement that makes me proudly say to my fellow creative students at Wits that I am truly Committed to Excellence and Trusting Relationships for your Convenience. Thank you so much Andre. You are the best manager and I am happy to work under your leadership and guidance.

My short assignment from the Manager

This week, my manager, Andre Le Roux, has given me a short task of finding information about the late Saxophonist and Jazz musician, Kippie ‘Morolong’ Moeketsi (1925-1983). I promised him I will look back into my second year Music in History and Society (MHS) notes. I know we have learnt a bit about Moeketsi from Prof Lara Allen in 2004, but I'm not sure I will be able to unearth the information from my old readings (too bad for an archivist isn't it?).

The manager also told me that they have been recieving extraordinary querries from members lately, and this is true because early during the week my supervisor, Noelene Kotze, asked if Kgomotso and I have come across 'Suikerbossie', a traditional Afrikaner song that has been sung by many artists in the Afrikaner genre. The two recent querries are the most sought after at the moment and we have a duty to unearth the compositions in the archive. So far, we have entered over 14 ooo light music records on the archive system and still, we have not yet come across the two, and it might take us a while to get the compositions.

About Kippie Moeketsi, I know I have come across compositions by Hugh Masekela, who played in the same band that he (Moeketsi) played, but traces of him as a co-composer were not available. I am certain we will come across his compositions but that might be too late because there is research going on, which needs information on South African composers, Kippie included. The fact that he is in demand keeps us on our toes to work faster in the hope that we'll come across his works and this are some of the challenges the archive is faced with.

Archive Update

One of the most important things that I remember during my Ethnomusicological studies at Wits was getting useful information on VhaVenda music Online. This was due to the works of pioneer archivist Hugh Tracey (1903–1977), who is still regarded as one of the pillars of the discipline because of his vast collection of African music, and John Anthony Randall Blacking (1928-1990), who wrote extensively on Venda Music from the 1960s up until the 1990s. Their works are now easily available Online, and during my studies, I could easily access a musical theme and analyze it while watching a performance. I recall listening to a Tshikona performance prior to my visit to Venda to do research, and when I got to Venda, I already had basic knowledge of what the VhaVenda music sounds like because of Blacking’s works Online.

Currently, SAMRO has over 80 000 musical works that we interns, as Data Capturers, are storing on computer systems and I am glad they will be put Online for enhancement of music usage in South Africa and the rest of the world, because the music will be made available to music users, who will buy copy rights to reproduce whenever they want to. I did not know this until this week, when our Manager Andre Le Roux, came and explained to us how important the work we are doing is and how ILAM (the International Library of African Music, an Archive Initiated by Tracey) is already advanced in this technological revolution. This also reminded me of the first week of our internship, when our Supervisors Noelene Kotze and Oscar Phophi, told us that the accuracy of the information we were going to capture is very important and that we must not concentrate more on the quantity of data as its accuracy is more important. Filing a large amount of inaccurate Data was far worse than filing a small number of accurate Data. Now I see how important this work is and, hopefully, I have been doing the work in the right way, because sometimes I would lose a whole day’s work because of pressing one wrong button, which resulted in wanting to catch up fast on the following day.
I am however, confident that though now an archivist instead of a field researcher, I am working in a place where field-works are preserved and thus I am still part of the discipline and enjoying every moment of it. I just wish I could be part of the technological revolution that is taking place at SAMRO for years to come, and witness how my work is contributing to the betterment of music usage to the public, and the Archive itself.


Ethnomusicologists who want to read John Blacking’s works Online go to http://www.qub.ac.uk/sa-old/resources/VendaGirls/Definitions/DefTshikona.html Or simply Google search any topic/article that you have read about in the library and I can rest-assure you that you will get more information to backup that field research you just conducted recently, in audio/visual and of course transcription.

Reflecting back on the Emotional Intelligence Seminar

To Nomusa, I was reading your blog yesterday and I was quiet struck by the situation you found yourself in in the past few weeks. I could also pick from your blog that the World of Work programme has helped you a lot in terms of handling the challenges of the workplace, especially the Seminar on Emotional Intelligence. It's good to know the fellow has finally admitted to being rude towards you and is now willing to help because you "had asked him nicely and in a very convincing manner", otherwise you would still be wondering what exactly did you say to actually upset him that much, and that was going to have a negative impact on your report. Keeping him as one of your networks is also a good choice as he is definetly going to be helpful in the future. I'm just glad you will now focus on your work without any worries because the problem is solved. Good luck with the report and know that all the Wowers are, and will alway be there for you.