South African guitarist and composer Derek Gripper describes himself as a former classical guitarist who’s rehabilitated himself. “In the classical scene, guitarists are at war with the guitar,” he says. “They want to be part of the greater classical tradition, which is dominated by the violin and the piano. They want the guitar to be more than it is.”
Gripper’s understanding of the has been shaped by his engagement with a form of music that was never written for the instrument – and actually, never written at all: the orally-transmitted repertoire of the West African griots, played on the 21-stringed harp-like kora.
