The Botswana National Cultural Council, the rumour says, has dissolved into a rumour.  So, it is the National Arts Council which should perhaps make a comment, if it has not also deteriorated into yet another one of those expensive rumours.

You know, sometimes you just do not know what to do with yourself in this place. 
I have been to, and lived in many countries, - not visiting - and in none of them have I ever seen culture manufactured in offices and ministries.

Culture, I learnt, is lived.  It is best reflected in the creative arts in parks, stadia, radio, television, Kgotla, nightclubs, universities, bogwera, bojale and schools of music.

Jaanong, in this place, people want to produce culture from the ministry, and they wonder why the only thing that ever happens here is people yawning and girls that wear their Chinese trousers down to the top tip of their afternoons.

Never ever have I seen a nation of people with a permanent expression of surprise on their faces like I see at Maru-A-Pula and everywhere else I travel.  Ke gore mo ga rona, sengwe le sengwe ke se se hakgamatsang.

Uhu, gatwe World Cup! Hee,  wa re Obama?  Batho ba modimo,  gatwe Kalafatis o rileng?  He banna, pula e, e tla lala e re senyeditse dijalo!  Wa re ga bo go reng!  A bo a reng? Ijaaja!Mmakwantle!

You mean you are serious that you can play an E Flat major chord in the right hand over a C bass, and it still makes 'jazz' sense! Really?

The musicians would be well advised to get out of the 'surprise' mode, especially if they want to make an impression at these annual  "Presidents Day" awards.

The president has played his part in committing himself to rewarding good effort in the music industry.  It is up to the musicians to reciprocate by  offering a product that is worth judging. At last year's event at the University of Botswana, the sound system was a shambles, rivalled only by the manner of administration and the quality of the judges at the event.

The trusting artistes starved there for the whole day, the clever ones arrived, did their gig, and disappeared, waiting for days to find out how they had perfomed.

My father told a friend of mine - it could have been Whyte Kgopo - that "These days you have to be blind, if you do not read".

I am not sure whether the message sunk.  None of the musicians that he has offered to tutor showed up, preferring to play from blind feeling, without the benefit of reading, which would also have helped them to write the music,It was an opportunity missed, and evidently, never recovered.

I was the least equipped at the Kgalagadi Band, never having gained much interest in the rock 'n roll music that I had despised when I lived in New York. 

I could not understand why those people were so attracted to noise when there was so much music by John Coltrane, Miles, Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Quincy, Keith Jarrett, Bird, Dizzy, Jon Faddis, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Union of South Africa and a host of other Be-bop and Avante Garde practitioners.

My greatest mentor, Jonas Gwangwa, trusted that every one of his student-musicians would hear his music, which I did, even if I did not play it as it should have been played. 

But, when Hugh wrote the music for Barney Rachabane and Duke Makasi, he would make out an extra copy for me because he figured that, being a Molefhe - grandson of the Tigerkloof bandmaster, Rampholo Binnock Molefhe - I should be able to read.  So I read.

But I still did not play the way I would have liked to.  The truth is, I just followed the chords as they came, when I could.

I was just too scared to make a mistake, so I played like an ice block.  The point is TJ made sure that I could read, so that connected me to parts of the world that I had never been to.

I read Mozart, Beethoven, Gillespie and every other imaginable thing at about Grade IV going towards V.  Only Alice and Maleta Mogwe read more efficiently.

So, reading was my avenue into Mbaqanga.  As I progressed, it was easier for me to develop the 'feel' for the music.

Now, with the 'feel' and the 'reading' ain't nobody can touch me, if I could catch up some more on my chops.

The moral of the story:  It's allright to play by the feel, but aint nothin' wrong with reading.

That will make the competitions worth attending