A recurring question here at RAMH — thanks to its proprietor’s stubborn innocence of just about all art forms and languages other than written English — is: How does art/music/dance work, in the first place? It never fails to amaze me that our brains are wired somehow to respond emotionally, even physically, to artificial sensory stimuli — that is, to those which have no counterpart in the “real world.” And we respond that way cross-culturally; it’s obviously not really learned behavior, right?

NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concerts” series invites musicians and entire bands to perform “at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen in the NPR Music office.” (“All Songs Considered” is the name of another NPR feature.) The above session featured Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal, who play, respectively, the “Malian kora” and the cello.

Says the page at the NPR site where I found this:

When the performance began, a hush came over the NPR crowd. Western ears don’t hear the kora often enough, and its natural beauty — combined with Sissoko’s mastery of the instrument — stunned those in attendance. But Segal wasn’t content to play, well, second fiddle. Halfway through the duo’s second song, “Balazando,” Segal adjusted his fingering and the angle of his bow, and all of a sudden, his cello turned into an African flute. If we’d had a third camera facing the crowd, you would have seen jaws hit the floor.

Yeah, I picked up on that, too: “don’t hear the kora often enough.” Like I’d heard it before at all. Still, that moment with the cello is indeed a jaw-dropping one.

[Thanks, Jules, for the heads-up to this video!]