Our goal is to spread music and stories throughout the world, to connect people through the power of music and culture.
August 2007
Well, it’s been 2 years now since the beginning of the Sound Alliance Project, and so far the experience has been incredible. We weren’t sure what to expect when we headed out for our first adventure, but with bags packed full of equipment and hearts full of hope we stepped on the plane to set out for the South Pacific. If you had the chance to follow updates during our first round of fieldwork, you’ll remember the Waru Nonoasi Panpipe group of the Solomon Islands as the first musicians to work with the Sound Alliance team. If you missed out on the beginnings of the project in 2005, you can watch the demo that we made last spring to learn the story of these people, and hear their beautiful music.In June of 2007, we hit the skies again, making our way to Belize and then Mali. Our experiences in both countries were unforgettable. We met great musicians and laid the foundation to work with them in the near future. The artists from Belize and Mali heard the Waru Nonoasi music and loved it. Not only that, but musicians from the group “Ben Kola” (Mali) even laid down some instrumental overdubs on a couple Waru Nonoasi tracks. It was time to bring it full circle and go back to the beginning of it all…
This is how it went... Pacific Diary
July 2007
Mo Money Mo problems
The Sound Alliance team is back in Montreal for a few days after our recent visit to Belize and our next destination: Africa. Mali to be exact, where we hope to make new heart pounding musical discoveries. Now most importantly, we need to assess the extent of the damage to our Video camera which broke down on the 2nd day of shooting in Belize. The official diagnosis is… it’s toast, to say the least. The camcorder didn’t like the humid weather of Belize and the entire tape mechanism needs to be replaced. Ouch. Even worse, it’ll take a minimum of 3 weeks to repair the camera. Double ouch since our departure for Mali in a couple of days. The only solution now is to rent another camera for rest of the trip. Together, the cost of the rental and the repair is a harsh “one-two” punch combo that lands right in the solar plexus of our small budget, leaving us flabbergasted and penniless, after some serious swearing life goes on. June 24th comes fast, marking our departure flight to Paris and from there straight to Bamako, Mali.To find out what happens next go to our West Africa Diary
June 2007Since our first round of fieldwork in 2005/06 we been super busy! Last April, (after 8 months of work in the Solomon Islands, Nepal and Thailand) we shifted our home base from Vancouver to Montreal where we created a pilot for our documentary and continued the search for potential musicians to collaborate with. Though a chain of friends we met record producer Ivan Duran, who introduced us to the vibrant culture and music of the Garifuna people of Belize. Also through friends we met Pascalo Vallieres, who at the time as working with Jeunes Musiciens du Monde. Pascalo had ties to various artists in Mali, and since we were excited to work in Africa we decided to check it out.
We mapped out a trip to Belize and Mali for development work where we hoped to learn about the different cultures and develop working relationships with musicians. At the same time we planned to travel to the Solomon Islands to reconnect with our friends the Warutana people. During out time spent abroad we intended to make some recordings as well as film the process so that we could put together an updated pilot introducing some of the musicians we spend time with. The pilot will act as our main tool we use to gain public support for the project as well as the interest of broadcasters internationally. We hope to create an excitement about the project before we embark on a full documentary shoot in 2008. At the same time the Sound Alliance team will be working with artists in each of their respective countries to create and release a full album of unplugged music. On the completion of these albums, a feature length documentary of the adventure combined with a compilation soundtrack will be released internationally.
The TSA Development trip 2007 begins like this…
Central America Diary
October 2006, New Photos!
We have recently added photos to our Pacific, South Asia, and Southeast Asia galleries. To read up on our past travels click one of the links here:
Pacific Diary
South Asia Diary
Southeast Asia Diary
The communities visited are listed most current first.
March 2006,The third village in Northern Thailand and final community of Leg one. The Lahu people Southeast Asia Diary
Thank you very much to all the people who have been keeping tabs on our work and sending us love through the internet. It is a major highlight for us to get feedback and we are always anxious to see how people feel about the project. As you would expect, we have crossed paths with so many kind and passionate people on our journey and are continually amazed at the amount of love for culture and music that is out there.
Leg Two is coming up as well as tons of new additions to the website: Video clips, Audio samples and 35mm photos are soon to be in the galleries.We continue to ramble on below so read on.
Don't try this at home: We made it through leg one but some of our equipment sustained heavy injuries or full on casualties. Here are a few examples:
1 set of headphones: The male input snapped as Dax was rushing while connecting it to the field mixer. He blamed it on a design flaw within the "Portabrace" Sound device 302 carrying case and then swore a little.
1 Tripod: Olivier was running to shoot something or other with the tripod's 3 legs fully opened and extended. As his was giving his all to catch the pulse-pounding action of a man plowing his field he caught one of the legs within his. Snap! Swear! Crazy glue!
1 Digital recorder: Less than 2 months into the fieldwork our Edirol R-4 recorder decided to crash any Windows based computer upon we connected to it nine out of ten times. What this means is that to retrieve music off of the recorder to work with and back up was a lame situation unless we could connect to an Apple computer. Try finding one in Nepal. Forget about it. Needless to say it was an interesting obstacle and we worked it out as usual. You know, the usual Sound Alliance genius.
1 Pair of pants: After an evening of eating some fresh juicy crab in the village of Huali, Solomon Islands, Dax went to bed and left the pants that he was wearing on the floor our shack. Unbeknownst to him there was some crab juice on there and the rats like crab too. He lost a good chunk of the inner thigh of his favourite pants but learned a valuable lesson. No matter how tired and full you are, always hang up your clothes before hitting the sack.
February 2006,
Our second community in Northern Thailand. The Hmong people Southeast Asia Diary
Late January 2006,
The latest update from our first community with the Lisu people in Northern Thailand Southeast Asia DiaryJanuary 2006,
Stories and photos from Nepal. Read the South Asia Diary.
The story of our most recent visit to the Tharu indigenous community in the South of Nepal is at the beginning of the page. We have also added photos to our older visit to the Tamang people of the North.
September 2005,
We are just back from a Warutana village. Read the Pacific Diary.Late July 2005
On July 19th, 2005 we (Olivier Cheneval & Dax Hickson), departed Vancouver, Canada destined for The Solomon Islands to begin the first leg of field work for The Sound Alliance project. For information on the project, detailing its purpose, our background story, the people involved and a detailed list of equipment please refer to our project page. Click on the region name below to read our personal account and view photos. We hope that you enjoy and don't hesitate to email us your comments!
Introduction:
Honiara, our first destination, is the capital city and the largest city of the Solomon Islands located on the island Guadalcanal. Yet, it is not easy to get to. To get there we transfer flights no less than 4 times : San Francisco, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Brisbane.
Just hours before flying we notice that a mistake has been made concerning our itinerary. As we are due to arrive in Brisbane Australia on July 22nd our connecting flight to Honiara is set to leave the evening before our arrival! This means that we are held up in Brisbane until July 24th. We immediately run to our travel agent to reschedule our departure from Brisbane. Luckily it's fixed and we head to the airport.
Singapore Sling shot
Twenty hours of flight stimulation later we reach Singapore, where we have a ten hour layover. This gives us time to visit the city by Light Rapid Transit (similar to Vancouver's Skytrain) to purchase an inexpensive digital camera and test out the reputedly stellar food of Little India. We buy a generic camera fairly quickly after haggling a whole lot and checking prices at no less that 15 shops in Sim Lim Square. A 5-story tall megamarket primarily selling digicams. If your looking for film cameras here you can forget about it.
Nearby we did find some great chicken samala, dalh etc, with a range of sauces to fill our bellies before heading back to the airport. It should be known that Singapore utilizes a great paperless ticket system. For proof of payment transit riders receive a hard plastic card. When you reach your destination you slide it into a machine to receive a deposit back for the card. Nice one!
Back at the humungous Changi Airport we literally search for hours to find affordable showers or a pool to refresh ourselves to no avail. Exhausted we retire by the departure gate to Brisbane. (pic-0001)
Brisbane, Australia
We find it very similar to Vancouver in terms of cleanliness, layout and architecture. It's basically just like home except for the change of accent and that it's a tad more expensive. We stay at the most reasonable hostel that we can find consisting of a few co-ed dorm rooms holding between 8 to 14 travellers. Our roomates are predominately friendly young Brits with the odd western european person mixing it up. Ear plugs come in extremely handy to block out the all night noise making posse.(pics:5,6)