Nicholas J. Gotelli

Southern China


Nick & Dai musicians. Xishuangbanna, 2008. Photos by Fanglin Liu.
In May of 2008, I traveled to southern China to present seminars and to begin collaborative research on ant ecology with with Dr. Fanglin Liu at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. Near the end of my visit, my hosts arranged an evening party and a chance to play music with local villagers of the indigenous Dai people. Since we had no spoken language in common, I can't tell you a thing about these songs. But it was amazing to find the shared elements of folk music from around the world that allowed us to all play together. Sadly, like so much tropical biodiversity, this kind of music may disappear within the next 50 years.
Song #1 (intro, guitar) [0:59] Song #2 (voices, guitar) [1:46] Song #3 (flute, guitar) [0:49] Song #4 (flute, guitar) [1:11] Song #5 (voices, guitar) [0:54] Song #6 (voice, guitar) [0:42] Song #7 (voices, guitar) [0:35] Song #8 (voices, guitar) [0:52] Song #9 ("Edelweiss" voice, guitar) [1:00] Song #10 (flute, voices, guitar) [1:22] Song #11 (voices, flute) [3:23] Song #12 (voices, flute) [5:50]