What's That Sound? The Lur

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator, Speak & Tell! Director

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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Here’s the latest in our regular feature that introduces our readers to unusual instruments. We believe there’s no such thing as too much music. And so, we introduce the lur.

It turns out that pillaging Vikings and pacifist milkmaids had something in common: both relied on a simple horn called the lur to get things done.

The lur (pronounced like the fishing lure) is a natural blowing horn that has no finger holes. The very first ones originated during the Bronze Age (thousands of years BC), and were used as war instruments to marshal troops and to scare the enemy. The bronze ones were curved with a large bell head. When upright, it looks like a cobra ready to strike, or a powerful showerhead.

Paintings of bronze lurs have been found in rock formations in Scandinavia.

Many centuries later, wood replaced the bronze and the curves were straightened as lurs assumed a more peaceful purpose. 

Beginning in the Middle Ages, shepherds and milkmaids used wooden lurs to call cattle. The wooden lurs, also known as neverlurs, could produce seven or eight notes, more than enough to rally the herd.

Although we don’t hear much about lurs these days, the word is common, at least in Sweden, where lur is a common word for telephone, a slang term both historical and symmetrical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLjGH_Ml3O0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP4pPNJZd3I

Are you a musician? Do you play a unique or unusual instrument or brand of music? Tell us about it in the comments below, and you may be featured in an upcoming issue of LUMOS!

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus our can’t-miss news and program updates from Luminari. Sign up here.

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington “Observer-Reporter.” She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly — because she likes a really good sentence.

Change Maker Q&A: Rick Sebak

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator and Speak & Tell! Director

It would be difficult to think about public television in Pittsburgh—or about Kennywood, hot dogs, pies or Pittsburgh history—without picturing Rick Sebak.

For going on 30 years, Sebak has been a charming, dimple-smiled presence as he’s wandered about town, telling stories about all the things that make Pittsburgh worth calling home. His documentaries have been a fixture on WQED-TV—tasty half-hour travelogues, bites of history and musings about why we all love donuts.

Now, Sebak is ready to begin production of a new series of programs, under the banner of “Nebby: Rick Sebak’s Tales of Greater Pittsburgh.” In March, he launched a crowdfunding campaign called “Rickstarter”, which has blown past its initial goal of $133,000. The money will pay for six or seven new half-hour programs, to air starting Summer 2017.

We like the word Nebby. Do you use the word?

I like the word “nebby” a lot. But honestly I can’t remember the last time I used it naturally in conversation. I associate it with both of my parents who used it frequently as I was growing up. “Don’t be so nebby!”  I probably wasn’t aware of it as a Pittsburgh-only word till I was out of high school. I was reminded of it late last year while trolling for Christmas presents, and I saw a bowl full of Pittsburghese buttons in the gift shop at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and I bought a beautiful yellow NEBBY button. I decided then that being nebby was part of my job. I could say also that you too are pretty nebby asking me all these questions. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

You're a native Pittsburgher, but spent the early part of your career in other places. If you would have stayed away and not returned, do you think you would have been as prolific in your production of documentaries? Is there something about Pittsburgh that makes it especially fertile ground for the kind of programs you do?

You’re right: I grew up in Bethel Park, then went to school at UNC in Chapel Hill, got my first job in South Carolina, and worked there in public television for eleven years before I answered an ad in a trade journal and got this job at WQED. I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve been able to make so many programs, both for WQED and for PBS, and I think Pittsburgh was, is, and probably will be for a long time a wonderful place to be, to work, and to goof around. Right now I think Pittsburgh’s mix of new hip culture and older, more traditional blue collar, gritty, hard-working traditions, neighborhoods, restaurants and bars, along with our incredible history as an industrial workshop where giant fortunes were made, gives us a wonderful variety of options, sites for exploring and makes for captivating stories. The mix is the key I think.

It can be exhausting to be in the public eye all the time, but you seem to handle it better than most. How do you manage the pressure to always be charming?

I’m not always charming, but I do love being social and out and about, so I try to be friendly and open and talkative as much as possible.

If you weren't a TV documentary producer, what career would you have?

I think if I weren’t making TV programs, I would want to be working in a restaurant. I always think of waiter or short-order cook as my fall-back position.

What do you think of the response to the Rickstarter campaign? Do you have any disappointment that your next round of programs will depend on public support through a social media campaign?

I have been humbled and amazed and delighted by the response to our Rickstarter campaign. There was a lot of work involved, trying to take advantage of all media opportunities, instigating and attending a lot of events and just trying to get the word out, keeping the word circulating and making our goal. The fact that we not only made the initial $113,000 goal, but almost $30,000 more was reassuring and invigorating and flabbergasting. Disappointment? In no way. I love that we took the risk to try a new (or relatively new) method of fundraising, and it worked. In public broadcasting, we always depend on the kindness of folks who appreciate our projects, and I’ve long known that I’m really lucky that people in and around Pittsburgh seem to really enjoy and support the kinds of programs that I like to make.

Pittsburghers love their dogs. What are the chances you would produce a "Dogs of Pittsburgh" show?

This is odd. I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before, and I’ve never really thought about it, but I think it could be a very good and popular show. I haven’t had a dog in several years (since my old pal Clancy died) but I know their charms, their loyalty and their power. I know too how much work our graphic designer here at WQED, Paula Zetter, does with the Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue Team, and I think there are many good angles that could make for a wonderful program. Shelter dogs, service dogs, trusty companions. I will put DOGS OF PITTSBURGH or maybe BARKING IN PITTSBURGH on our list of ideas. Thanks.

I stop and watch "Kennywood Days" every time I come across it. Do you stop and watch your own shows when you happen upon them?

I do often stop and look at my own shows that are more than 6 months old. After that period of time, I’ve usually forgotten the sequence of stories, and how much information we tried to cram into every story, and the transitions from story to story that can be especially satisfying if they still slide smoothly, slyly or surprisingly from topic to topic. WQED often runs one of my documentaries on Sundays at noon, and I try to alert folks to that every week on social media.

What's your favorite part of producing a documentary? The research, the shooting, writing, or editing?

My favorite part of the production process tends to be the part I’m working on at any given moment. I love doing the research, love conducting interviews and going on location with a crew. I love trying to figure out how best to assemble the show. I truly love working with my editor Kevin Conrad to see how individual sequences can be put together. And I love finishing a program too. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out of an answer, but I’m telling the truth. I don’t want to give up any of the steps.

What's your favorite TV program to binge watch?

Binge-watching? I’ve only done it twice that I can remember. I watched the first season of BREAKING BAD in one gulp and got hooked. And I also felt obligated to try and get up to date on DOWNTON ABBEY when it began its second season, so I watched the whole first season on one weekend. It was also very satisfying and got me to watch at least another season or two as it happened.

Name a documentary, other than your own, that you think your fans would enjoy:

I love when documentaries can be personal and informative and entertaining, blending reporting with a producer’s own history, preferences and insights. I just watched a recent FRONTLINE documentary about seafood and aquatic farming called THE FISH ON MY PLATE made by the writer Paul Greenberg who traveled the world to see how seafood is being caught and farmed while he ate nothing but fish for a year. I enjoyed it a lot. But it also reminded me at times of the wonderful local program that my colleague Minette Seate made here at WQED last year titled WHY NOT WILKINSBURG? It had the same excellent blend of personal memories and up-to-date information.  You can watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJM-cEEbBYk

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus some can’t-miss news and program updates from Luminari. Sign up here.

What's That Sound? The Mbira

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator, Speak & Tell! Director

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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You’ve heard of a pipe organ, a church organ, and a mouth organ, but how about a thumb organ? That’s the more common name for the African instrument called the mbira. The word is pronounced mm-BYE-rah.

The first mbiras were created more than 3,000 years ago on the African continent, and were made of wood. More recent versions are made of wood with metal keys, or tines. The mbira is held in both hands, with the thumbs creating the music by striking the tines. The action looks a lot like the hands-and-thumbs motion of texting on a cell phone.

The mbira’s unique tone is described as inharmonic—a dissonance that occurs when the motion of one tine creates a vibration in an adjacent tine. That first sound is complex, but eventually becomes a pure note. In order to increase the variety of vibrations, mbira players often attach metal bottle caps or seashells to the body of the instrument.

Mbira music is traditionally plated at weddings and other religious ceremonies. Its tones are thought to attract ancestral spirits.

Are you a musician? Do you play a unique or unusual instrument or brand of music? Tell us about it in the comments below, and you may be featured in an upcoming issue of LUMOS!

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus our can’t-miss news and program updates from Luminari. Sign up here.

***

Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.

Change Makers Q & A: Angelica Ocampo

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator, Speak & Tell! Director

Angelica Ocampo, President
and CEO, World Affairs Council
of Pittsburgh

In my role as Coordinator for Luminari, I meet some fascinating people who are doing important things for the Pittsburgh region. For each issue of LUMOS!, I will feature a Q & A with one of these individuals.

Meet Angelica Ocampo, the president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh. The Council is a non-profit that works to help the residents of Western Pennsylvania understand how global challenges affect the local region. The Council is especially committed to helping high school students understand that they are part of a global community.

You were born and raised in Argentina. Your work has taken you all over the world, but you are new to Pittsburgh, having come here late in 2015. What were your first impressions of our city?

I came here knowing really very little about Pittsburgh. And when I got here I found that Pittsburgh is bouncing back. Jobs are coming back, and there’s a quality of life here that is bigger than (the growing reputation) can reflect. What struck me most as a newcomer was that the city still doesn’t have the reputation it deserves.

The people here talk about Pittsburgh as if it were an old relative. I will hear people talking about the city, and they’ll say things like, “It’s doing great; it’s getting better.”  You never hear that in other places.

As the president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, you are reaching out to high schools, with programs to change the way teenagers see themselves and the world. Why is this important?

I see my goal as getting students to appreciate that global mindedness is not just nice to have—it’s not a luxury that’s only for certain people. Being globally aware is one of the key skills that the labor market will be looking for. Our struggle with students is helping them to become aware how being globally aware will always be an asset.

How, specifically, are you engaging the teenagers?

We are using technology to bring the importance of global awareness to high school students. We go where the teens are—using pop culture, video games, virtual reality. For example, we are using technology to show the students what it’s like to live in a refugee camp, or in shelter towns. We show them documentary films: what does it mean to be Muslim?

Much of your work has been in helping teachers find ways to connect with their students around the subject of world problems. And I’m sure you’ve interacted with teenagers from all over the world. How are American teenagers different in their global perspectives?

I’ve found that teenagers are the same everywhere. They don’t know what they don’t know. It’s our responsibility to bring awareness (to what is happening all over the world.) I find that teenagers are especially engaged in areas of sustainability and the environment. There is a shared concern about the world in terms of the environment.

Getting back to the subject of your new home. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Pittsburgh is a little obsessed with Steelers football. Are you a fan?

The passion for football here is all consuming. I’m not all that into football, but there are a couple of things I should know. Are the Steelers playing? Are they winning? It’s another trait that brings the city together, and I think that’s great.

You’ve spent a lot of your life in the Latin culture, which is known for its delicious and varied cuisine. Are you finding Pittsburgh to be a good place for food and restaurants?

I discover good restaurants all the time. The (food scene) here is up there with any cosmopolitan city in the world. (I love being invited into homes for meals.) I’ve been to more homes here in a short time than I ever was in New York. I really enjoy it. This is a great food city.

To learn more about I Want to be an Ambassador! camp or any of our other exciting, fun and unique Summer Camps for Teens, visit luminari.org, email us at luminari@luminari.org or call us at (412) 877 -1888.

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus some can’t-miss news and program updates from Luminari. Sign up here.

What's That Sound? The Didgeridoo

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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And so we offer our seventh in a series of unusual instruments: DIDGERIDOO

Here’s an instrument that owes its existence to pesky insects.

Like kangaroos and that beautiful Sydney opera house, the didgeridoo is among the best-known images of Australia. And that long, strange horn has been part of Australia culture for more than a thousand years.

   

Aboriginals, the indigenous people of Australia, created the first didgeridoos from eucalyptus trees that were hollowed out by termites. Most are between 3 ft and 10 feet in length.

   

Musicologists classify the instrument as a brass aerophone. It is played by blowing air into the wood with a buzzing motion, much like how a trumpet is played. The sounds are produced by circular breathing, a tricky maneuver that requires the player to inhale and exhale almost simultaneously.

   

In Aboriginal culture, men alone play the didgeridoo. For centuries, women were prohibited from even looking at the horn for fear of disturbing the “spirits” and inviting earthquakes or other national disasters.

  

In recent years, the didgeridoo has gained popularity around the globe, both for the unusual but beautiful sound it produces but also for health benefits. A study in a British medical journal found that playing the didgeridoo may prevent snoring and asthma. Seems that circular breathing strengthens the airways. 

      

Who said termites are good for nothing?

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.

A Tale of Self-Driving Cars and Horse-Drawn Buggies

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator

We Pittsburghers are getting a glimpse of the future not yet available to those in other places. Google’s self-driving cars are out and about every day, mapping our streets and working out the bugs so the rest of us eventually may be driven around.

You’ll recognize the special cars by the boxes of GPS gear on the roofs. I pass them all the time in the city’s Strip District, a route they favor for both the ease of navigation but also for the proximity to Enrico Biscotti.

It’s exciting to see in real life the embodiment of the most futuristic ideas of my childhood.  Imagine the possibilities: self-driving cars will bring freedom to people with vision or physical impairment, and to the elderly.  The cars will “think” for themselves, making their way around our cities and towns, launching us into the future.

The newfangled cars remind me of an experience I had this autumn. I was on a cycling trip through Amish country in Holmes County, Ohio, a place where signs of the eschewing of technology are everywhere.

While on the trail, I happened along a man who had stopped to show some people his recumbent bike. Interested, I pulled over to join the conversation.

As often happen among cyclists, we struck up a conversation. The man asked if I’d like to ride along with him to the next town. It was five miles, long enough for me to learn some things about his life.

He was raised in a large Amish family. The life, he said, was idyllic, a wonderful way to grow up.

His father was a farmer who died a number of years ago, suddenly, in his 60s. He suffered a heart attack one night while riding his horse and buggy through a nearby town.

“My dad was alone in the buggy,” my friend said. “Dropped dead right there on the seat. The horse turned around and took him home.”

I doubt I will see that man again, but his story was a gift, a gem offered during a short interlude between two strangers.  Since that day I’ve thought of that story a lot, how animals have an intelligence that we don’t always acknowledge; how that Amish farmer and his horse were friends in the truest sense of the word.

And I’m reminded that autonomy and superhuman intelligence are not the purview of modern technology. The roots of our greatest ideas can be found in the simplest places.

Coffee Talks

By Beth Dolinar

They used to be called “coffee klatches”, those informal meetings of several individuals (usually women), who would drink coffee and chat. What comes to mind for me are those 1960s sitcoms in which women would just walk through their neighbors’ back doors and sit at the kitchen table for a visit.

We’ve gotten away from that sort of thing, just as most of us no longer vacuum in aprons and pearls. But we love our coffee more than ever. We just tend to call it other things (double breve macchiato, anyone?), and we don’t drink it at our next-door neighbor’s kitchen table.

I bring this up because it’s recruiting season for the Luminari camps. Although we’re not long past the fun and success of our 2016 camps (including our new public speaking camp, Speak and Tell), it’s time to look ahead to next summer, when we will once again offer a slate of innovative and exciting programs.

And here’s where the coffee comes in.  During the coming months, I will be hosting a series of “coffee talks” to spread the word about our camps. I will invite the parent of a recent camper to then invite several other parents—as few as 2 or 3 or as many as 6 or 7; we will meet at a coffee shop or someone’s home, to talk about our camps and how they can enrich the lives of teenagers.

The idea is to work face-to-face, taking a personal approach to telling parents about our four camps. The informal setting will allow the alumni parents to share their own children’s experience, and will allow me to answer questions.

We at Luminari begin our recruitment each fall to give families the opportunity to consider their summer plans and to confirm their registrations well before the “spring crunch.”

As coordinator for Luminari, I enjoy getting to know our teen campers as well as their parents. These coffee talks will allow me to do more of that.

If you are the parent of a camper and would like to put together a group for one of our talks, please call or e-mail bdolinar@luminari.org.

And if you’re just learning about Luminari, I’d love to meet with you and your friends, too. These coffee talks are for everyone—parents of teens and friends of teens. Teachers, too.

I’ll be happy to meet all of you.  And the coffee’s on me.

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.