Watsha

(Tina Singu)

Notes

“Wat-sha” is pronounced exactly as it looks, as are “Tin-a” and “Sing-u,”  “Le-lu-vu-tae-o” is pronounced “leh loo voo tay oh.”

“Watsha” means “burn,” and refers to clearing the brushy areas by burning them.  “Tina” means “we.”  The song says, “We are the burning fire, we burn.”  A call-response song, it comes from Leotho, a small country in southern Africa.

About the Composer

Shirley W. McRae is Professor Emerita at the Rudy E. Scheidt School of Music, The University of Memphis, Tennessee, where she taught for 25 years.  Ms. McRae is known as a specialist in Orff Schulwerk and presents workshops from coast to coast.  She is equally in demand as a clinician and conductor for festivals and choral events.  She has been published expensively, both as an author and as a composer. Her music has been commercially recorded on several different labels, and her 1996 commission.  “The Song Inside Me,” was declared the official state Bicentennial song for the state of Tennessee.