whistle while you work
This post was fun to assemble. I hope these examples inspire anyone looking for ways hard work can actually be fun. A difficult task is so much easier with cultural support! These elements can be part of our art-systems, part of our lives. As I find new potential case studies, I wonder what else is still out there, and what needs to be in place for these practices to survive modernity? Where else in life are these people experiencing work music, rhythm, and integrated beauty to create enough soil for these manifestations to bloom? This does not happen in isolation. Food preparation, dancing, language, fashion, spirituality, festivals and even architecture are shaped by this dynamic. Any future climate adaptable society will likely want to consider how to support remaining healthy and resilient patterns and generate new ones.
The following video examples from Africa are some of my favorites:
Work music is certainly not limited to Africa. Examples exist all over the world indoors and out. To put some of the context for sustaining this into perspective, there’s an amazing documentary research film by Dutch filmmakers Thomas Roebers and Floris Leeuwenberg (2010) exploring the pervasive rhythms of daily life in Africa:
It is interesting to consider how some art elements appear to combine with each other more easily. Consider: Music/Dance/Fashion, for example. Food/ceremony/tools, and perhaps architecture/painting/sculpture. To this, we might suggest that certain important work tasks might pair more naturally with particular forms of expression. My sense is that the more integrated and mutually supportive the art-system is, the better it works to support the important useful task or behavior. That said, all of these can be pared down and simplified as required and still maintain the resonance with the whole system. Rhythm in a musical sense is a powerful unifier, so is visual rhythm in buildings and so may be rhythm as expressed through other senses such as taste, touch, and smell. This resonance and pulse would hold across senses, concepts, and fractal manifestations at all levels.
The remarkable Bennett Konesni has a website called Worksongs.org documenting work songs internationally. Well worth a few hours of listening. I include this here to show how some people are researching these cultural practices in a range of systematic ways. How might work songs inspire our tool design, diets, or even our farming ambitions? What if our gardens and work spaces were also forums for creative expression and artful teaching tools as well? How to live in this world is challenging enough with climate catastrophe breathing down our necks, why not make our attempts to align ourselves with the Earth and all beings that much more resonant and powerful using these techniques? We urgently need to show our fellow humans better alternatives. How can we invite this spirit most effectively?
This bean song, in addition to being fun and helping people work steadily, is also a recipe! This blog post talks a bit about the fascinating history behind it. Using permaculture language, how many functions can we stack? What patterns can we make? :)
