Songs
The addition of a songs tab involves at least two steps: First, I edit the audio fragments and add them to the site (in chronological order by song.) Next, I do my best to transcribe the song texts. Currently my Mande language skills are little better than rudimentary, so unless I have another source, the transcriptions are entirely phonetic. When I have the opportunity, I will seek out the assistance of some native Maninka- and Susu-speakers (my teachers, for example) to derive more satisfactory transcriptions (and eventually, translations.) (Actually, I should also mention that since this whole section is very much a work in progress, I often do not know whether the song melodies I identify even have names, nor certainly what those names are. These are recurring themes, associated with certain pieces or tune families. If I do not know the name of a song, I assign it a temporary name—often chosen based on either a few clearly identifiable words, or on the name of the artist with whom I associate it. I do this not to canonize, but to facilitate recall and comparison.)
The media player I am using is John Dyer's MediaElement.js. Though generally awesome, this player does have (at least) one conspicuous flaw: a bug that forces the volume meter outside the player element on browser zooms. (It only happens with certain browsers on certain operating systems. As of September, 2017, I use Firefox 55.0.3 with OSX El Capitan, and the functionality is perfect, but I also use older versions of Firefox with Windows 7, where the bug surfaces. I have tested with other browsers on both platforms; for this particular bug, functionality varies. If you see the volume meter outside the element, just try resizing the window.) As soon as the bug is fixed, I will update the code.
Pieces with songs tabs include:
allah l'a ke
bani/makhadi
baö
duga
fama denke
guede man na
guinea fare
haidara/tantamba
hama ba jata/jaka
Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions—or especially, if you think you might be able to help me with transcriptions or translations. My sincere thanks to those who already have.