In June last, two Steinway pianos were acquired by Government. One was the upright type to be used by the National School of Music and the other was a Grand Concert Piano which would be at the National Cultural Centre and will be used for national and public events.The arrival of these two Steinways is one of the most important items of cultural news for the year but yet the media and the educational establishment gave little notice to this event.

Two generations ago, the musical life of the country was very vibrant. Such vibrancy was evident in all three of the mainstream musical traditions in Guyana. The three mainstream musical traditions are of course, the Folk, the Western – which would include classical music – and the Indian with its very ancient classical department

The Folk tradition was found in the villages. In the predominantly African villages, there was always a band with string and percussion instruments and with a repertoire which had much Folk music. These bands played at weddings, parties and the Old Year Night dances. They were particularly active at the August Monday Emancipation celebrations.

In the predominantly Indian villages, Indian Folk music like Chutney and Biraha and songs used at Rites of Passage – that is, occasions such as death, weddings and janeos (name-giving) – were performed with much audience participation. There were no organized bands as in the African villages, but players of the various instruments would bring along their instruments such as harmoniums, drums, sarangis (a violin type of instrument), tampuras, jhals, dantals and even sitars, and come together as a band for the occasion. Some of these very performers would regularly play and sing in the mandirs.

Professor Vibert Cambridge, one of our most distinguished educationists who taught at important American universities, collected a great deal of Guyanese Folk music and information about performers. The Guyanese educational/cultural establishment and the University of Guyana would do well to develop closer involvement with Professor Cambridge.

Classical and religious Indian music was much alive around the mandirs and masjids. Though today Bollywood music predominates, two generations ago many people played and sung classical and they improved their skills when gramaphone records became available from the 1920s by studying great performers like Allahudin Khan and Ali Akbar Khan or highly skilled singers who, for example, would have rendered Mira’s bhajans.

Our Western musical tradition was the most important and pervasive and included church and religious music which used compositions from composers like Bach and Handel and even the Gregorian chants. Classical music was widely played and enjoyed and the radio carried many hours per week of classical music.

Indeed, in Georgetown, the militia band gave regular public concerts and sometimes even the private orchestras would offer free public concerts. There were also regular Sunday afternoon concerts at the Town Hall where performers like Lynette Dolphin and Rosemary Ramdeholl performed and many young people had their first introduction to Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart and other composers at these concerts.
In the schools, much more time was devoted to music and the musical culture was very strong. There were many excellent private music teachers and pupils of both the primary and secondary schools did the Royal School of Music examinations. The piano and violin were the favourite instruments.

Popular music was also much played and enjoyed and there were several professional orchestras and bands which played at social occasions. With such a strong and vibrant musical culture, Guyana produced many world-rating musicians such as Rudolph Dunbar, the first non-white man to conduct the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Ray Luck and the several members of the Lonck family and even the militia band was rated as one of the best military bands in the British Empire.

Into the reasons for the disastrous decline of the musical culture of Guyana, we shall not go. But certain measures could be taken to revive it. These would include the State taking very positive action in recognising the three main Musical Traditions of the country and giving them material support; restoring music in the schools as a mainstream subject; music again being a serious subject in the teachers colleges; accepting music as one of the five or six CXC subjects for Public Service employment; importing musical instruments such as the piano, violin and guitar with duty-free concession; having the few remaining piano tuners to hand on their skills and the Grand Concert Piano should be protected and unauthorized persons should be prevented from interfering with it.