This is a remarkable project, and this week long experiment in having an online conversation about the content and form of the site has been illuminating and intellectually and creatively generative. Following are some general observations/questions:

1. Is it possible to sort comments using different criteria? For example, is it possible to sort comments by date/time so that one can see a chronology of how the conversation evolved? It would also be useful for someone who is visiting the site repeatedly to quickly identify and review comments posted since their last visit?

2. I love the videos of the performances in Jamaica, and the videos posted of other music recordings that relate to this project. Can there be another page created for users to easily access these videos and recordings?

3. The proposed documentary film focusing on Chinna and the other musicians engaging the material in Jamaica is a great idea! Perhaps this site can also include excerpts of footage from that documentary film project.

4. In addition to the documentary film, it would be useful to have on this site some background about the performances in Jamaica to accompany the videos of the performances of the five songs.

5. I'd like to use this site to teach students about multidisciplinary methodologies and collaboration in Caribbean music research and scholarship. Will this be available, and in what form, after this week's experiment is concluded?

I would like to suggest that this section be revised to make more explicit the violence of plantation life, the high rate of death due not only to hard labor and poor nutrition, but also due to punishment, torture, and the gruesome and willful murder of enslaved Africans in order to instill a regime of fear to enable a white minority to control a black majority. I would also frame this music as resistance--creating spaces for the perpetuation of traditions and spiritualities that were outlawed and severely punished in order to maintain European hegemony.

As I listen to Koromanti (Part 2), read the commentary about the rapid scale of the music, and view the images of the instruments that Sloane documented in use in Jamaica at that time, I am very inclined to think that Koromanti Part 2 may have been a song initially performed on a kora. Kora performance entails the use of both hands simultaneously plucking strings that are tuned to different pitches. The kora performer plays the rhythmic bass and melody sections simultaneously. I suspect that a rendition of Koromanti Part 2 played on a kora would have a more fluid sound than the version played on the banjo. The song reminds me of traditional kora music from the Senegambia region. What percentage of the Africans brought to Jamaica in the late 15th century, early 16th century were from this region?

The illustration of the instrument labeled "3" (fidicula) is not dissimilar to a kora--if we imagine a gourd used for the body and two parallel sets of strings connected from from the base of the instrument to the top of the neck, it could very well be a version of a kora. From the illustration it is hard to ascertain whether the strings lay flat against the body of the instrument (similar to a banjo) or whether they extend outward from the body (like a kora).

I would be interested in hearing a third rendition of this section of the song performed by a kora musician. Can this be included as you develop this site?