Playing for Change

     I got an email with a link to this group - Playing for Change.  I think it's a neat idea and a good cause so I thought I'd share.  They are trying to bring the world together and solve some global issues through music - but in a new way.  They get musicians from all over the world to play together - the trick is each musician is playing in their home town.  So this "band" has players singing and playing various instruments all over Italy, Netherlands, Venezuela=), Russia, Spain, Africa, The Congo, Israel, the US (including an Indian Tribe from New Mexico) and more.  The song below starts with one musician singing on the streets of Santa Monica and slowly more players are added until you have a global symphony.

Bill Moyers Journal wrote an article on them - here's an excerpt: 

     ...blues singers in a waterlogged New Orleans, chamber groups in Moscow, a South African choir — to collaborate on songs familiar and new, in the effort to foster a new, greater understanding of our commonality.

     Johnson traveled around the globe and recorded tracks for such classics as "Stand By Me" and Bob Marley's "One World" — creating a new mix in which essentially the performers are all performing together — worlds apart. Often recording with just battery-powered equipment, Johnson found musicians on street corners or in small clubs and they would in turn gather their friends and colleagues — in all, they recorded over 100 musicians from Tibet to Zimbabwe.

     The Playing For Change Foundation provides resources (facilities, supplies, educational programs, etc) to musicians and communities around the world. The foundation is working with South African poet Lesego Rampolokenga to build the Mehlo Arts Center in Johannesburg, South Africa and building and supporting the Ntonga Music School in the South African township of Guguletu. In addition, Playing For Change is working to enhance and rebuild Tibetan refugee centers in Dharamasala, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.