Djembe Rhythms from West Africa

Author: Nowick Gray

  • Renewing Passport

    Renewing Passport

    and other class notes…

    I’ve resumed teaching djembe in live local classes, and as always, the starting point, especially for beginners, is the “passport” rhythm, so called because it’s the entry into most 4/4 territories of West African rhythm.

    Easy to play once you get it, but notoriously difficult to learn (or teach) at first. After trying a variety of techniques to break it down for students to learn easily, it finally occurred to me to reduce it to the simplest steps at the outset, or even for review for students who have been exposed to it already.

    The basic structure to stress, marks the main four beats with the right-hand slap. This can be modeled as a call and response, followed by introducing the additional notes in the same way.

    The call and response format is useful also to hone students’ listening skills, with practice in the ability to recognize and repeat patterns. Many rhythms are versatile with mixing and matching of half-bar patterns to form new variations, especially in the space of two bars, with a common structure being aaab, or abbb. For example, here are some half-bar patterns to vary or extend, from Kuku, and another from Kassa.

    With the 6/8 building blocks, you can apply the same exercise using the aaab formula, as in Soko, below. Or, with a rhythm like Fula Fare, Soli or Mendiani with a 3/4 feel, I like to take a more advanced approach to change the emphasis (notes in bold) on the fourth half-bar.

    The possibilities, as always, are endless! But this is a good start for how to structure your variations and shades of emphasis.

  • Sunu Jams, and other exercises for handing and timing

    Sunu Jams, and other exercises for handing and timing

    Do you know the feeling of a rhythm that knows you so well it always shows itself when you sit down to play? So you can’t shake it, as if it doesn’t want to let you go. You might call it your song. At least until the next one comes along.

    Lately (like, the last ten years) I’ve been obsessed with a kind of Sunu groove, which I feel is the core of Sunu, the opening g – P T in 4/4, and so many variations thereof. Also what attracts me to the Sunu feel is its flexiblity to become triplets, or 6/8 meter, interchangeably with the 4/4, simply by an adjustment of timing between the notes, sometimes obvious and abrupt, sometimes nuanced, imperceptible.

    So often what starts out as a straight Sunu soon morphs into a Lafe, or Aconcon, with a doubled tone to start. Or, what starts that way veers into Sunu before long, then into triplets and back again. (See the YouTube video I recorded from such a jam, with some patterns as indicated below).

    Here are some of the patterns that turn up in such a solo practice jam, with many more variations just by mixing and matching the half bar patterns. Note that a switch of handing sometimes makes sense when lining up with triplets.

    Note that in many of the above patterns, the key is to keep alternating right and left handing through the sequence of notes. That way the timing can be squeezed or stretched wherever you like, for additional variations whether sticking with 4/4, or giving a triplet twist.

    Happy drumming!
    —Nowick Gray

    YouTube video: Lafe/Sunu practice jam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXJbDQl187c

    For more exercises and studies in djemberhythms, see the Roots Jam books available at DjembeRhythms.com (PDF and audio) or Amazon (PDF or print).

  • Latin Meets African

    Latin Meets African

    At a weekly market in San Pancho, Mexico (a small town up the coast from Puerto Vallarta), a musical trio called Caravan provided the live entertainment for the day. A talented flamenco-style guitarist, a versatile female singer, and a conga player. The drummer had an improvised kit of sorts, as he sat on a cajon, with one foot operating a cowbell pedal, and the other a pedal for cymbal. But for the most part he stuck to a simple tumbao pattern on the single conga:

    H t g d H t P t

    I have long known of this rhythm as a staple of the Afro-Latin genre, but never noticed it being relied on for virtually a whole set of diverse popular, classical, and Latin-style songs.

    The repetitive nature of this particular rhythm reminded me of another concert I witnessed in Victoria, BC about twenty years ago. Juno Award-winner Alpha Yaya Diallo (on guitar and vocals) fronted a band featuring a talented djembe player, likely also from Guinea, who occasionally was set loose to show his chops. But for 90 percent of the show, I was amazed to see him confined to the same simple accompaniment rhythm, which any beginning djembe player will recognize as the basic part for Kuku:

    G – g d – – P –

    I was struck by the similarly confined role of both of these talented drummers separated by time, geography and culture, given the emphasis of the music they were supporting. And now for the first time I realized the universality of the rhythm they both played, as the tumbao and the Kuku part are essentially the same archetypal rhythm.

    Both start grounded with the bass downbeat on the 1, follow with a double tone upbeat, an understated downbeat on the 2, and a final upbeat slap.

     

    It’s a proven formula, suitable for virtually any 4/4 song, to provide both a stable downbeat structure and an uplifting offbeat counterpoint. The unstressed extra notes on conga (unbolded, below) serve only as timekeepers.

    To explore further the many overlaps between traditional African and Afro-Latin rhythms, choose from any books in the Roots Jam series. And let me know what other lookalikes you discover! 

  • Candomble and the Parade of Lost Souls

    Candomble and the Parade of Lost Souls

    This past Halloween, the samba band I play with, Samba du Soleil, got to take part in the annual Parade of Lost Souls event in Vancouver. We were stationed at the entrance gate to open the festivities, playing for half an hour before the city’s own Carnival Band came marching up with horns blaring and drums pounding, to lead the crowd off into the night.

    Our band had a captive audience to begin, though it was still daylight and they hung back, only a few of the usual brave souls dancing to break the ice. Our usual opening number, Baion, was lively enough, but the next tune, a more mellow Bollywood jam, was less practiced and failed to energize. So we switched it back up to our rocking Samba Reggae, to get everyone up and moving as the Carnival Band arrived.

    First they played over top of our tune, then gave signals to follow their musical lead. It was all pretty chaotic and loud and fun as it should be, with the costumed crowd fully engaged now and ready to amble out of the square on the Carnival Band’s coattails. Samba du Soleil held our positions beside the exit passage where the crowd column, five or six wide, continued streaming past.

    In the transition as the other band faded from the scene, our band kept the pulse going with a steady trance pulse. The surdo and percussion were supporting the groove as I improvised a funky two-bar walking beat on the timbau:

    My choice of beats wasn’t premeditated or decided consciously, it just arose out of the energetic of the moment, the pace of the crowd walking past, the bounce of the vibe. Once locked in, I had to keep it going, until finally the flow of people dwindled after twenty minutes.

    Needless to say, that rhythm stayed with me for the next two days and nights, hammered into my bones and humming in my cells. Then on the third day, when thinking about the band’s work in progress, Candomble, it hit me: that was the essential feel I was channeling in Vancouver. A closer look at the notation confirmed the unconscious link to the rhythm I was working on the week before.

    I had thought I found a new mine shaft to the mother lode of ritual music, but it proved to be an avenue well traveled before, even a familiar one, only obscured by other itineraries, agendas, and maps of the mountain.

    —

    For more rhythms to play with a samba or batucada band, be sure to see my latest books in the Roots Jam series, Roots Jam 4: World Beats – Rhythms Wild! and Best of Roots Jam: African & World Drum Rhythms (available from Amazon in print, or the DjembeRhythms.com order page for PDF versions and optional audio files).

  • Best of Roots Jam

    Best of Roots Jam

    With four volumes of Roots Jam already covering the map of world beats from the African tradition and beyond, it’s time for a “Best of” album… er, book!

    No more thumbing through separate indexes, choosing from too many variations, or deciding which book fits your focus. Now you can have it all, distilled into one handy reference for study and practice, or playing on the fly. 

    Best of Roots Jam brings you 101 jam-packed pages of rhythms from West Africa and around the world, with tips, comparative charts and cheat sheets for beginning, intermediate and advanced drummers. Notation for djembe and dunun (traditional and ballet-style) as well as tabla, doumbek, conga and Latin percussion.

    Best of Roots Jam: African and World Rhythms – order now in paperback or PDF download. 

    This curated collection includes the most popular rhythms from the other Roots Jam books, with upgraded formatting in consistent, easy-to-read grid notation. The perfect companion for solo practice, dance class, group ensemble performance, or funky DJ tracks. 

    Order now from Amazon (paperback or Kindle PDF) or from this website (PDF only, with optional audio bundle). 

  • How We Practice

    How We Practice

    Last spring, after a couple of years off from playing West African music, the local dance teacher reached out to see if we could start some regular practice on traditional dundun rhythms.

    Yes!

    So we began, with a few others trying out until we settled on a core study group of four to six players. The dance teacher has learned some of the rhythms before and knows what she likes from dance classes; otherwise it mainly falls to me to share parts from my store of resources and experience.

    As with drum students everywhere, the written notation works for some and not for others. I bring notes to rely on and support my porous memory, so at least I can model all the parts accurately for others to learn. For those students who relate to it, the notation serves both to follow along closely when learning beat by beat, and to reference visually the single or multiple bars of a pattern.

    We usually have three separate dunun players (traditional style with bells), and once they get rolling, I practice djembe parts, traditional solos, breaks, and improvisation. With the following notation you can share what we’ve been grooving with. All the rhythms have traditional sources, but at this stage they are mixed and mingled, adapted to our circumstance and taste.

    Pro Tip: Lately there’s so much good stuff to choose from (beyond the projects of Bolokondo and Dunungbe), so for the next rhythm to practice, we pick from a hat.

    For written notation and audio tracks for your solo and group practice, see the Roots Jam collection (4 volumes to choose from) at Amazon.com or the DjembeRhythms.com order page.

  • FAQ Update

    FAQ Update

    Though this website already has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, today I received an email with some more unanswered questions. So I will attempt to answer them here. 

    I found your Youtube channel and came across your website.
    First, thank you for providing free and very helpful information on both your YT channel and on your website!! 
    I am a beginner and am learning how to play the djembe. I am interested in purchasing the books and the optional audio but have a few questions.
     
    Root Jam Books:
     
    1. What would be my best book format to  be able to view the notation while practicing (i.e., such as on a music stand)?
    I like to have hard copies for reference books. But if I want to play while looking at the notation, would I be able to do so with your printed version (on Amazon) or would the PDF be a better option?
     
    For practicing, a music stand is a good idea. The challenge with the printed books is to keep them open to the page you need. One solution would be to print selectively the pages you want to practice, with a copier/printer. PDF display could also work if you can make it large enough to see clearly. Or again, you could print selected pages from the PDF.
     
    2. What is the approximate percentage of  beginner rhythms in each of the books?
    Also how would I be able to tell if the rhythm is for beginners, intermediate or advanced players?
     
    The rhythms are not divided into beginner or other levels. But you will see that in each section some patterns are easier to play than others. For example, the kenkeni is usually the simplest dunun part to play; likewise with the basic accompaniment djembe parts for most rhythms.
     
    Audio:
     
    3. Do your audio files for R2 and 3 4 contain clips of  the djembe drum only and no other instruments?
    When I am learning a new rhythm on the djembe, I like to specifically hear how the rhythm should sound on a djembe first. Then it’s nice to hear how the song sounds holistically when played with other instruments such as the dundum. I did listen to the sample tracks you provided. BTW, I appreciate the samples of both the book and the audio files!!. The audio files all sound really good. But I have a hard time focusing and isolating the djembe parts/sounds as a beginner. Therefore, having the 2 clips would be perfect.
     
    RJ2 has shorter sample clips… a few djembe, some bell, and some ensemble.
    RJ3 uses a format of introducing each instrument separately, then layering them together. My advice would be to stop at the djembe part and practice it alone, then play along with the ensemble part when you are able.
     
    4. My assumption is that the all of the audio files are downloadable MP3 files right – not streaming?
     
    That’s correct, all of the audio files are MP3 downloads.
     
    Ordering online:
     
    5. If I were to purchase the PDF and audio files from your site via Paypal, how would I access the PDF and MP3 audio files? The reason I am asking this question is because when I click the “Add to Cart” button, it immediately brings me to the Paypal site where I would complete the purchase. So I am a bit confused in terms of the steps in the process to actually access the files. Usually I provide my personal information first such as my name and email address, then pay for the product. Sometimes I have to create an account first if I want to access and download larger files.
     
    When you order PDF files or audio from my website, it links to PayPal. The order process is automated so when payment is completed, you receive an email with the download links.
     

    To other readers: Please let me know if you have any other questions; I’ll be glad to help!

  • Performance Debrief

    Performance Debrief

    Last weekend I had the opportunity to play in two drum groups for a young friend’s going-away party at a community hall. Our fledgling West African drumming practice group got invited to kick off the festivities, followed later by the established batucada group, Samba du Soleil. The former group consisted of three dundun players and me on djembe, while the samba group had nine members playing a full complement of Brazilian instruments, and a well-rehearsed arrangement of five pieces.

    The first set was hampered by our sangban player missing from sickness, replaced on the spot by a talented transplant from the samba group. It was going to be informal anyway, layering in part by part until the dun parts meshed, then adding in traditional and original djembe solos.

    After Soko, I said to the crowd of twenty-some twenty-somethings, who had been merrily gyring around the floor, that our music was “not intended to be a flashy performance, but just to groove… which you’ve been doing anyway, so, let’s keep doing that.”

    What I should have said, would be to introduce the music and say we were a practice group, joined by a sangban player who was taking on these rhythms for the first time. Layering in worked well to establish the groove, but then I went right into the sequence of traditional solos, as if there were some invisible West African dance class in the room instead of the gyring hippies who just wanted to flow and connect with the music.

    Some of the solos went smoothly, some a little rough, and I relished as always the tapestry of variations, largely from my overdriving mental catalogue of schematic notation, with maybe ten percent of free soloing, usually riffing off fragments or mistakes from the traditional solo phrases.

    What I should have done was to honor my intention to connect with and play from the groove, to the audience in that room, from the heart of the music rather than from my extensive ethnographic program. I realized this oversight in my bodily sense while walking, the next day, each step marking the cadence with the beats still tracking in my brain and infusing the blood… Coming from that place of organic motion, those fragments could spring more organically from the music, connecting also with the vibe of the dancers.

    Learning from the experience, I could use these tools in future to enhance local community, rather than to project as if on a screen the flavors of an imported culture. Likewise, in preparation for such an event, it could be more productive to visualize a holistic experience with the audience and the venue, instead of simply practicing and memorizing the notation and handing of the rhythms themselves.

    Bottom line, it’s not about the rhythms for their own sake, but about the interactive experience that the rhythms are tools for unlocking. And even just in terms of the music itself, the point is not to try to recreate “traditional” solos faithfully (ultimately an impossible task, especially for a person not of that tradition), but rather to use them as guideposts to the territory, leading to and from the heart of the music: the pulse and the texture created by the duns.

    In addition, we had a shaker and percussion player from the samba band standing by trying more or less successfully to follow and fit in, along with a stray djembe volunteer from the audience. Instead of making an effort to help them follow the pulse and engage them in the group, I largely ignored them because they were late additions to the mix and I was, again, too fixated on my own program of solo sequencing.

    Thankfully, the samba performance later was more satisfying. Though I was entrusted with leading the arrangements, my own part as a timbau player was integral more than prominent, even when I carried off competently a sixteen-bar set solo during Samba Reggae. The overall mix was balanced and dynamic, feeding and feeding off the room’s enthusiastic dance energy.

    So, the point of this exercise isn’t to tear myself down or build myself up, but just to share some useful debriefing of how things can go during performance, and how they might improve.

    I hope you find this mini-lesson helpful for your next show!

    For more tips, lessons, and rhythms for West African and Brazilian drumming, see Roots Jam 4: World Beats.