A new year, with new Challenges and a few new ideas.

First, a quick update on the book (The Joy of Finding Out): I’m in the last couple of days of copyediting. Then it goes back to the publisher so they can prepare the galleys. (That’s the full resolution printing of the book and the last possibility of an edit.) THEN… off to printing! We should get them by May or June. I’ll be sure to let you know when the book can be pre-ordered!

On to our Challenge for this week…

Late last year I went to see the Gipsy Kings in a concert at a winery in the hills over Silicon Valley. It was a spectacular evening with brilliant music that’s a blend of gypsy, flamenco, salsa, and pop–all sung in Andalusian Spanish.

Gipsy Kings in concert (Mountain Winery, August, 2018)

Mostly.

They do have one song that baffles me. It’s Majiwi, which has the lyrics:

Wil Majiwi
Wilana wil Majiwi wilmajai


I understand enough Spanish to know that this ain’t Spanish. So…

1. What language IS this lyric (Majiwi Majiwi…)?

2. As I was sitting in the concert, I was struck by the number of times they would sing in long, beautiful, intricate phrases, spending quite a while varying a single note up and down. It occurred to me that this musical technique MUST have a name. I’d like to know more about this practice, but to search for it, I need to know what to search for–so… what’s this called?

Here’s a short sample of that musical effect that I include for illustrative purposes.

MP3 file — two samples of the mystery musical effect.

What IS this called?

As always, tell us HOW you figured this out? Is there something we can learn from your searching? (And be sure to tell us if you just knew it off the top of your head…)

Have fun with this!

Search on!