Doris Green and Melvin Taylor

00:01 My name is Melvin Taro pie Taylor. I am 49 years of age. Today is Monday November 14th, 2011. We are in Foley Square in lower Manhattan, and I'm here with dr. Aris green who is an associate of mine.

00:18 Hello, my name is Doris green. I am of a certain age and otherwise, I'm over 70 today is still November 14th, and I'm down in Foley Square to record my

00:31 Credit to the world or whatever you want to say to precourt my genius. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you Doctor Green. It is a pleasure to have you come down here today. I must say that I first ran across your autobiography, which is no longer an oral tradition. Correct? Yes, correct. Correct. Ran across the review in Attitude answers magazine. And when I saw it, I read it and I said, wow, where is this woman that I knew you were in New York and

01:07 I never knew where to find you lo and behold I was at dance Africa this past summer and Chuck Davis and standing there and he's saying I'm like she's here. I'm running over to you and I'm like, I've got to meet this woman. I've really got to meet this woman and lo and behold I met you we exchanged information and the dialogue has not stopped. We worked on the few things which we are not going to let out just right now, but we are going to discuss is the discovery that you have met as you know, I'm building the international Museum of black dance and through my journey. I was trying to find out the variations of black dance black dance can mean many things that can mean traditional African dance. You can meet as black dances they do ballet they do more than they do jazz that do tap as a people we have

02:07 You can dance and and taking it all over but you've done something specific. What is it? Well, I created a system to be able to write the music particular set of drums. That's how I started out writing drum music because I had a annual spot do in Carnegie Hall as a dancer. It was for Queen of the Jungle Miss and the drummers who played for me couldn't read music and I'm a trained musician and dancer from grammar school. So I said there must be a better way that I can teach this show them how to play the beats that I want. So every session is not a jam session. So I was fumbling around with that and I was in class one day. I'm going to teenage in in high school and the teacher says any sound can be written with Pitman shorthand system. What high school was this Prospect Heights High School in Brooklyn in Brooklyn May

03:07 And I thought it meant a polite way of speaking. May we do this and maybe do that? She said no, it's French. May we total different things a little conversation different different meaning and I said to myself wait a minute if they can do that and why not right drum sounds good. I picked up my pencil and I wrote you do the damage. What I did was I took the symbol for the word drum in Pitman sew with are hook and an m at the bottom if it's something that needs to be seen and it's difficult to actually how to explain it. But that's what I did and I knocked off the are hook and I took the D stroke and I'm slice off the m at the bottom. So I had Addy's I print that 3 time DDD Pittman is noted for his savings on light and doll. Addy stroke is a vertical stroke running from top to bottom and it's a dog stroke if I do it as a light stroke it is a t

04:07 And so I rode doo doo doo dumb chat with herb 3D Strokes on the four-stroke. I had to reattach the m. So you got doo doo doo dumb and that dumb is actually a mute where it meets the sound of the drum heads and then I ended it with a sharp slap in the shops that was represented by the symbol for I such as what you see with all the pronoun. I in Pitman, so I had to do something that's how I started. I didn't have capped it out again and it. Now, I'll be able to show them but I got to work with this anything about that. It didn't give me the element of Rhythm. So that's a different thing. Okay, if I left it to somebody else's interpretation. They might just lay

04:56 That's not the same thing. Okay. So what was the next step Next Step was trying to find a way to produce the Rhythm. So I went from that to circles and I use the dance. That was very popular at the time for buttock supposed to be from Nigeria and I would play that and that's okay. That's it's a simple piece Koto potato. Okay from Nigeria to a tattoo, okay.

05:31 So that's the one I was working with. It is a very simple straightforward Rhythm which get with utilize the side of the drum and it sticks and before we only use our hands we didn't use fix on drums. It was just hanging skin on skin as we would say, so here they were playing.

05:53 And I so that's pretty and then we would dance behind that. So what I did was I took circles for circles do it with a quarter coin and put them in a larger rectangle. I did that because when we were taught to dance as youngsters in grammar school, we did it in the Box on 123 than what I have in each one of them and in each quarter. I put a circle that was in the wreck that I drew the action with the drama was supposed to do on the first one was sick and then I went to the next one leaves from the stop top left straight across to the top right and then I would stick stick stick hand and that's sick sick. Sick sick was on the side of the drums about you then down to the bottom, right and that ain't single and over to the bottom and it ends up unless you got to the bottom left. Okay, by the time we got to the top left the measure begin again, so you have them.

06:50 1 2

06:56 For sex, so that's how about when I said I got that why I said quarter for quarters equal 1/4 common time for 24 the other dances that we did such as fungi and that does not go for fungus. It's not working what we don't even know what the real music to Fonda is cuz para prima's about the para prima's who study this dancing research than library library West African ported back right said that the music was lost and Customs. So we never really got a clear reference point as to what the music was not even in her definitive performances, but I went to the two of them and was play different in each time. It's time for this is not going to do so now I'm going back to the rhythm of

07:56 System degree notation. We are in the second measure of the development. What's the next that you found you found the Rhythm Rhythm that work for that that work? Okay to find it to make the Rhythm work for all all drum things in all bells and then I had to be able to include other things in it. Just the drum and so I said I I tried a number of things. I was just really racking my brains out to get that and I finally wound up with a chili bar bar graph vertical bar graphs horizontal bar graph. Mostly how you would take it take the graph paper and put a a. He and then another. Then another idea to show the Rhythm that I would be able to Bealls that way by the way, you would have to connect the bat for the rattle. We've got to have it all in one to let you know then something else happened. I write my dances my choreography for this particular.

08:56 Annual concert. I wrote him in a little book in All of Me book, and if I didn't perform the dance routine D or very frequently.

09:06 I couldn't figure out what the notes were no matter. How careful I was when I wrote. Why weren't you videotaping at that time? What year was that? Okay, go video taping so video take me to everyone was dealing with this issue of capturing that dances and remembering that was a big issue in that day. But there was a bureau here called the dance notation Bureau, which I think was created in 1940. So it was I was totally unaware of where it was leaking out when I was going to dance class. I express itself off as one that one day. I was traveling on the train coming home. And one of my girlfriends will live down the block. She said how you doing with this stuff for choreography. Remember to call movie quotes of the descriptions don't seem to fit knee when I can't produce him as accurately as I could in the beginning God for the first time in September.

10:06 A little too late for her cuz she was graduating in June. What did you say the right dance? Oh, that's okay fine. I will go to college I came on.

10:17 Jenny process myself and I became an undergraduate student in college overnight. That's it. I'm going in there was in September 1962. I was in college 62. I was Van Buuren Brooklyn College for the next four years. And now I have to work in the office support yourself. So now laughing notation your your learning back in the day and I told God now what am I going to do now? So I'm in school and I said, okay, I can contact the teaching teachers. Of course. She will get me the workbook and the notebook so that I can do that and she will correct my right now. I'm so that's how I got into dancing to study.

11:05 As a while and when I got the workbook and textbook think I was thumbing through witnessing. I got to the thing as a breakdown of a beat breakdown of a beat. Vance. This is music back to math. They had done it in a bar graph vertical bar graph now not horizontal. So therefore the basic symbol would be the rectangle that rectangle be equal to a quarter note. I can prolong it or I can subdivide it and if I prolong and I will get my half note and my whole know if I subdivide of that would get on April sixteenth note 30 seconds 64th and like that. So that's a base. Hit Bingo. That's it. I need no need to worry about nothing right now. All I do. This is the Rhythm rhythmic element that I was looking for and I got that so now all I have to do is transfer my symbols, which had increased in number from just based on slapping like that.

12:05 Added rattles in at Adam bells and it said well I have to do now is remove them out of circle and put them in rectangles.

12:12 That's that's simple so overnight and then this way on the staff. They had the lab notation staff is a three-column staff with extensions on the on the on the outside. But the three columns with be your support and your gestures at three lines are three, three lines answer that fast since the line separates left from right? So bingo, I know I did that to mine since a line separates the left side of an instrument or play with the left hand side from the right side. It's been a play with the right hand. So it's all now. It's falling into place quite rapidly. Now, I can take that and line it up with the dance moves in apple music and dancing one integrated school. This is all during Brooklyn College. What happens at the Brooklyn College at doing the lady is as I said, I went at night. So that was 62 when I came in and then I had switch to laugh and went back that went to Howard University left there right quick.

13:12 Then came back to Brooklyn College as a I'll fight. I'll fight everybody for my what I want. That's so that was fast. So I went on back to school Melissa and then it was the impact of the 60s was a tablet.

13:29 Deck 84 that everybody had a complaint and everybody was voice and they complained that you was voice in the complaint against unjust War. They didn't want to go to war Sandra coming conscientious objectors and not going to war women with talk about equal work for Equal Pay not burning in Brazil equal work for Equal Pay. Why do the same job you do not want the same pay and believe me. I've been fighting for this since I was in kindergarten. Why should I have to do things that only a tribute to women? I should have to play with dolls and I'm not interested in the Civil Rights Movement affected you if that guy me and did that push you towards creating the green notation. I already had it. Remember I saw this in 52, okay, and in the name denotation didn't come about and it was for it was high school percussion notation when I was in Brooklyn College one of the Kali calling see something he gave me the name muziki Waka Africa me music of the people of Africa in the kiswahili.

14:29 The language that I have that I took that with me when I first went to Africa to work with that and I went to East Africa to study and so forth and so on so but I'm telling you the black go to East Africa 1970 the blacks were protesting and doing the 60s that we have no courses relative to us in the curriculum is always the same thing that impressed with that. It was a passage of the Civil Rights Act that mandated causes black and minorities Quizlet 1965 1964. I believe President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and then they had so much time to get the courses in stablish establishment that affect you what to do for you. I'll put it this way. I was in Brooklyn College and I just happen to be on the spot and I'm one of four blacks only in the department for blacks total in the department of health is education, Das and Recreation and so the chairman

15:29 Called us and Essence all the chairman call me at my house. What you want with me, you know, I'm always suspicious of that. I call my other girlfriend. I think we better join forces it all you got to say that we went in there. We felt that it won't try and say that we did something is black folks on the campus and we know we hadn't done anything or we came before so we got there. They just wanted to pick our brains to see what courses they could come up with to offer in the department of health education Fizz education recreation day as whatever and so we started to talk about that and I suggested that they give courses in African dance. They knew that I was on the campus already and now it's already been involved with number of other projects on the campus of the expressway and dance and I'm so Jamboree and all this type of program that was actively involved in that and they knew from the classes. I was thinking that I could accompany myself.

16:29 I started teaching African dance at the time they have to wait for me as a junior okay at night and you know me cuz you can take it in then you go into the daytime. I switch to the day is 68. So what could you do as a junior and they can pick my brain? I'm a genius born among food so they can pick my brain. And when I said African I teach African dance classes, it clicked and they Saturday won't groom me to teach the course, of course. It's so in that was that and that's how it began as a senior Dance Project. I put together some movements based on the African things that I thought how my people dance cuz I always wanted to learn how the dances that my people even though. I didn't know where they who they were or where they came from. So I did this and

17:29 Go to a group of students as a senior Dance by they clicked and it went on it was very good and matter fact. It is still alive to dancing is in Ohio University Ohio State University has it I went to dance notation. I notated as a dance project and also it's out there and that since I formed the group then cuz I don't want African from Brooklyn College afro-soul Football Club. I had that Bernadine came into it. She was a dancing department. So we all got together and then sat and next thing, you know, 69 come along I graduating. I'm on staff.

18:03 And but I had an empty slate cuz it was nothing. They wasn't a textbook that wasn't a glossary there wasn't any any type of lesson plan has no guidelines. Nothing no definitions nothing but an empty room and a mirror and a bar now. Can you help me? You don't construct how we will teach African dance? Absolutely nothing. So it fell upon my shoulder to Crete or create all of this. I thought it would define an African dance is over and it's not even at this decent recording so I had to buy instruments to teach them how to learn fortunate for me. I had studied with Africans who came here as students and they said they called you with us. I work with them some of the

18:54 I would say some of the pillars of the post African cultural awareness movement such as in in Africa such as opal from Ghana Ghana is the was the leading country in Africa far as a culture was concerned. In fact, it's the fa culture the fa people of Ghana who's Music and Dance have been most of these have been done on those in any other music in Africa so that the end the every music is the phone Foundation the building blocks of the entire field of ethnomusicology. You know that no okay with open when I came here and he studied that's notation. He was mandated. He was summoned to Ghana in 1962 when it first opened up the school or I might be wrong on a date and he was he's his job was to create gas costs.

19:54 Men's courses to teach those courses and also to create and national dance Ensemble for the country of Ghana. So that was his name, but he was a genius he pulled on to create this now and the apartment was the lead dancer of the agony and dance to pee came here and I took dance with him. There was also other people came into the last couple when we was teaching at Columbia University. I went there because I didn't have anything. I went there to study with Dan with where to Columbia University Soccer Fields of Gold and study the music people coming in with all the twin Gene and I thought I didn't that day and a lot of people from various countries in Africa were coming in and out. So we were running from here today and it's taking these classes. I know it's at a time from Sierra Leone and I can't even

20:54 Remember all of the names and so forth and then I am I decided okay fine. I have to go to Africa so I can own my skills. So I applied for program because the International Institute of Education established program caused many of the people who came into the future to teach African this whatever about them didn't have any experience in and they had that the African so they host of the program whereby a baton and they in NY you would have the problem call African siminoff a teacher's I went and that's how I got to East Africa to study what year 1970 and you're in where in East Africa first before we went to France and then we went to Greece and then we came over to East Africa Tanzania Zanzibar. Ouganda. Can you can use the Final Destination destination and so far only flew through is a dildo climb Kilimanjaro.

21:53 Play Flight facilities. What is that experience do for a green atation levitation 2 minutes that I can put into the system and so forth and so on and I was already told that I really wanted an African instrument. I have to come to Africa to get it because Africans made their instruments to be played and it would be playing it is necessary to make them to be sold, even though today. They have not commercialize Hugh Tracey in the international library of African music roodepoort transvaal South Africa, and I kept my mouth shut because we weren't supposed to be dealing with South Africa because of the power socket my mouth shut but I did get I can people I could correspond with and so forth and so on and so that's how I got into that and then threw that one that's okay fine I did.

22:53 So well in the first year of being a nice at East Africa and they were telling me that you're really for what I wanted West Africa was more developed than they were right. That's what they told me that it will the next year. I'll be coming back here to finish. I'm going to work that I've done and then I'm going to go all the way through out from there all the way through synagogue. So I had to come home and make arrangements to get cultural informants and a cultural informant is a person's going to be in charge of you from the time you leave your house until the time you come back that's very important particularly as a woman traveling the continent of Africa twin Katherine Dunham first decided she wanted to go to Africa on the roads and fellowship the same one that Pearl Prima that she was told by

23:43 Hershkovitz Melville herskovits that was too dangerous for a woman to travel the continent of Africa. So she didn't go she went to the Caribbean then years later for a Primo's followed her and she went to the library and off on I came along years later maybe a decade or so later than that and I started my studies and he's happy and I went all the way through WhatsApp. Can I learn from their experiences that you need a cultural informant? Who's going to help you and assist you from everything from the time you leave your house until the time you get get the alien including who's going to pick you up at the airport with you have to take a taxi. We are going to stay to to Define your trip as to what you going to study where you going to study this how many all of this and if you're going to buy a Smith's open all of this has to be taken care of and it has to be well thought out and he hasn't this has to be a person whom you can trust and I knew I could trust watch I want my Michela use my first coaching informant and he came through the embassy in the Embassy Church.

24:43 They don't let your name is the ground without checking you out there early. So I knew that he was a responsible person. He was responsible for the Eastern region these some Cool Sup Tanzania. So I will be able to work with him and I told him what what particular. I wanted to research and so that's how I want to learn that one beautiful. What happens next. This is the during the 60s now right here in the seventies now 71 and I'm glad I'm heading up from from East Africa all the way across to West Africa covering maybe fourteen to Seventeen country after I finish with this after I think I had Diane wasn't cause I had to time Nigeria down home and I love that name. I love nothing better than I do believe doubt. We'll go Ghana Ivory Coast Sierra Leone in Liberia Gambia Senegal when you come back to the States and what?

25:43 Is when you do come back to the States when I come back to the States and loaded with a lot of information that I could use and drink passes that I can teach my class and instruments to teach him and so forth and so on and that's the way it went, but I know he's in that trip a particular in Ghana. I received a lot of hope. I have my coach and inform as well plan before I got there and they took me there and then I saw a sign that said August something a festival of nine am sorry, February 28th Festival of African dance. What is this song from February also early in advance and I didn't understand it. So I went to my cousin informant. I see him. I don't understand this why you keep a post is like this. He said no. No you go back and you look at the poster carefully and see if you can find a date other than 28th of February.

26:35 And he said I'm telling you why because 28th February is the name of a road in Ghana Lestat is that road was named that because that was the day that the soldiers would kind of petition to the British for their freedom and they shot the soldiers down on the street on 28th February. So that is called 28th February rules that go back and look for a day's I went back and sure enough. I found the date of August something with it going to be able to go to the accountant and see the Festival. What was that like an absolutely fantastic man? I'm sitting there all kinds of dances never tell me. I can't even begin to describe an informant turn out to be something not too great. And he wanted me to be his fourth wife as I could have just like that and so forth. So he was summarily dismissed and so I was trying to

27:35 Lick my research on my own and so I was outside there doing this and I came in when they very tired from going to museums and this time you're trying to just get my footing get get a handle on the research. And so I stopped in the place to get something to eat and I was sending three men sitting at the table behind me and I went to the bar in your section to get something you ordered my food and everything food game. I'm already to know what to eat any man came and took the plate away. I'm saying whoa. Whoa. Whoa, I don't know. What the heck is that mean? You took my plate? So I'm going to order another one and then I'm hungry. I'm not waiting for them to fix another place as a God be with me be with me cuz I'm going to join a man and I join team and I sat right now. I want to know what I was doing here. And I told him that I was researching African music and dance and so forth and so on they turn out to be

28:35 Best people yet. They work in Delta. When was rifles with the museum the other ones in that in there and they took me to all of the venues of that. They took me to a Popeye's a 250cc the Eastern State Festival 3-day Festival. I was very very good music and dance with you to look for there until 4. So I was really gone and only thing I said that I was wondering if I was able to get that and so far. I'm glad I did decide to come and join my food and I was able to do very well organized was even from here. I was able to get the

29:21 Name of the festival in Arvada as I will be able to go to the eye doctor in any other places that would kind of ragged when it came to the organization. They say it's the festival supposed to be August 1st. It might have gone to year to two months before very well-organized same thing to you and that my coaching informants and then that's where I'll pick up. My first gym be the people with playing Daphne on and I said, I wasn't that drunk cuz you were playing it. I want it. So the man that's what I don't want it. So he said okay you let you know that he's I will take the blue office and you come back next year and pick it up and I went on to the other places and after that I won't up instead of which was my last stop.

30:15 And and I had to cut uniform up Maurice on a single nephew of the president and he was noted for what he was the creator of the valley of Senegal work with kicker for the bar and creation of the guinea belly, which was called the ballet Nacional together for the bar in 52 in France. Not in Africa was in France would not be God and they open in 53 at at Wildwood theater on the same Mikey as if x have the whole story from him cuz I made a mistake Monday saying beginning ballet was great and DACA. He jumped all over me and I'll tell you what happened to never repeat with somebody else and so he told me how it began and so forth and so on that I had already seen this thing on record albums where he was saying that he the French beat him up and they kicked him in the face and it just everything else because he was reciting was a nightclub Entertainer and he was reciting a poem

31:15 Tree and things like that that reflect colonialism effects of colonialism on his people and I ended the audience was responsive to it. But the French thought it was an insult and they would jump into his ass pull him off the stage handcuffed and be fast and the furious throw them into the Patty wagon take him to the prefect are the precinct and kick him in the face and stomp them all over and sending after hours of torture them out on the road and itchy eyes was closed almost shutting you just haven't hardly can gather the strength to play at a taxi to take them back home and so forth. And so and then he had to stay home to this bruises heal before you go back into the Nightclub at but he said he would continue to be the voice of his people and that's that he would be the worse. It's because he didn't like colonialism in an accident and I asked him I thought you the same person you said yeah. What is the name was so nice and go but his real interests. His full name is Marisol nothing, but I only saw Sona sanguine album those in so far as I thought it would be

32:15 Was in his early forties what are some of the other people that have contributed to your discovery?

32:25 Oh have all those in Ghana you have a o this a flood zone in Ghana and Nigeria. You would have them the Timmy Verde. He was one of the first to say, I want you to come to Nigeria and notate the ink didn't set of yerba drums in notation put them in writing, but he didn't know how well it would work for the talking drum. Yeah, you don't then and daughter-in-law a little while later. You can do a lot of people play the king did not die. And I said I want to personally when I got a personal interview with him and I put my drum and then I took my notes and I said, I'm going to show you how you can write music for this job. And I played the thing he looked at me and he astonished she said, you know, how many music colleges I've had to come off from wall over Europe and all of the one who say they can Note 8 drum music and they all failed miserably and here you come and you know take one of Africa's most difficult dump. They talkin John. That's why you wanted me to come back to

33:25 Nigeria with them and work on Bata drums. Unfortunately, Nigeria buku and they both passed away before I could get back to do that. So Big Ben in Orlando. I'm just hoping that from the conference. We just add that I can make contact with his family so that I can that can possibly be done at once they become peaceful. I'm not going anywhere that I can teach his outside online and you can actually see them without going there. That's what I want to ask you. What what do you want to do with green notation levitation organization of African Unity said in the mid-80s that they wanted this program for it to be included in every school in Africa. That's the way they should know and because it was the guy names himself in the third African music Rossum held in Ghana under the Aegis of UNESCO and the international

34:20 World music Council music concert and they had laid down certain recommendation. We must have a way to write out music for ourselves so we can communicate to each other the music so forth and so on this is it up right dance, right then I have my stuff is so forth and so on is odd because I think a woman should dance and they shouldn't play music so that you know, they would turn away from you. When I told her the same God that I could write music. He didn't turn me away. He said

34:59 Heated welcome to welcome me with open arms, but he would give me the opportunity to explain it to him. So and I got a copy made from a written French for him and told him if I speak fast slow me down. If I don't if you I say something you don't understand ask me to repeat it cuz this is very important. So it did and you know in 15 minutes, he was actually happen out. The Rhythm itself is that this is the most amazing thing he had ever seen in his life and all he want to do that money to seize the copy and take it directly to the music director of Santa got abdul-rauf my job for his opinion on and he would let me know what the man said in his office was right down the street from it. So that's how they've been so I'll go is to get your autobiography more read out here. And then also you working on the textbook for this book is complete so that we can get students to be certified in it was completed before the autobiography, but they took the autobiography published at first if the textbook gives me

35:59 Anything is a textbook should be just as the OA you said it should be utilized throughout because right now the music and dance is not heading in any positive direction is still doing the missionary way the relying on Western notation relaxing notations proven himself to have its deficits. You cannot do that since a quarter note on a on a on a drum is the same 4 notes as you see for the rattles and thankful that you see forecast today. It doesn't depict the sound and the same so they need to have the system. They need green notation and it need laba notation as an integrated school so we can have both music and dance in a single integrated school. And that's what needs to be done throughout Africa throughout United States throughout the world so they can all be working on the same page and that was in forget this

36:48 So this is me trying to help preserve. This will definitely preserve the music and dance and that's an unfortunate that has had the opportunity to do this a number of times. I've had no taste remix. Dances are not preserve. What what what what a losing you simply simply lose decades centuries of African music and dance go to the Grave with the person who held it in his head and it's the lost to the world forever. Even UNESCO devised a program called the music of the world program. So they won't have they won't lose everything. You don't think we can rely on oral tradition know you can't rely on all tradition any system any culture that is totally dependent upon oral communication with transmission of its culture from one generation to the next is doomed to failure because of the breakdown of the human memory over time and outside interpretation, which is more lethal than the breakdown of human memory.

37:46 Okay.

37:48 I want to thank you so much Doctor Green for coming in. We are excited about just getting like you said this out to every University every school every student whether they want to be a musicologist or dance or whatever. I think that this is very very important and it's translated into so many other areas that are needed to still help students just learn and be more comfortable about who they are. That's true. So I'll be looking forward to it. I know that we are going to have to have another 40 minutes with you because we can't even get that any of the questions. That's all. Thank you. You're welcome.

38:29 I hope that then.