By Ibrahim S. Bangura
Amadou B. Jobarteh, a music lecturer at the Amadou Bansang Jobarteh Music School in the Gambia, has said that they are establishing a partnership with the Ballanta Academy of Music and Performing Arts to enable tutors at Ballanta to visit the Gambia, to give music lessons to their students on a regular basis.
According to Jobarteh, establishing a relationship with Ballanta will not only help their students be well grounded in music and performing arts education, but will also help them exchange culture with Sierra Leone.
He said, “We would be sending our students to Sierra Leone to learn music at Ballanta as well. Ballanta Academy is a music school I found through my social media research. I understand that this institution has been in existence for over 27 years now. I also know that it has produced a lot of products that are making a lot of impact in the art industry today. I found Ballanta as a resourceful academy in music production as well as performing arts. So I believe that partnering with the academy will help greatly.”
Jobarteh explained that art has a lot of benefits to the individuals who create it and to the societies who consume it.
He said learning how to make music has a physical effect on a person which leads to a higher working-memory load, better auditory-verbal memory, and better auditory attention.
According to him, music education can raise children’s IQ and improve their test scores. “When information is tied to music, it’s easier for kids to remember. That’s why many kids learn through songs, like the Alphabet Song, etc.,” he said.
He further said that arts is a tool that preserves and protects culture and history. “For instance, many musicians in the Gambia are passing down stories with some musical instruments like the kora (similar to a harp) and the balafon (similar to a xylophone) to accompany the spoken word. This tradition has gone on for hundreds of years,” he said.
Jobarteh, who started his career as a brass band player conducting marches for institutions, , has been a music tutor in the Gambia for over four years.