"Breaking through the silence".....an acrylic painting by Manisha Vedpathak

"Breaking through the silence"

Acrylic on canvas, 24"x36"

Finally completed the painting. Painting is of musicians from Ghana ,

 in their traditional attire  .

Music has always played a huge part of Ghanaian society.In fact music 

and dance is an integral part of everyday tribal  life and is seen as a way 

of preserving tribal identity.

Ghana has varied style of traditional music due to large variety  of ethnic groups

 across the country. Typically this music is played at  traditional ceremonies 

such as installation of Chiefs, annual traditional  festivals, funerals, and in 

performances at various ceremonies.

The popular musical instruments include a variety of leather,wood, gourd, 

beads and string instruments. In my painting have included Djembe(drum),

 xylophone, talking drum and flute.

Djembe ( as you can see in left bottom) is a goblet drum and is played with 

drummer's bare hands. The drum's purpose and the meaning of it's name are

 to 'gather everyone in peace' .

"Talking drum"  is a white circle with a stick on it,  in the top portion of the 

painting. This is an hourglass shaped oldest instrument used by West Africans. 

The pitch of this instrument is regulated to mimic the tone of human speech,

 hence called "Talking drum".

Xylophone is a modern instrument which is just like a regular xylophone.

 These are  wooden bars on instrument and mallets are used to produce music.

The one unifying aspect of all different types of music is a strong dancing beat.

 Any African music is guaranteed to fulfill the purpose of dance beats. Hence my

 one more painting in this series will be of African dancers.