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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.

A few weeks ago I welcomed a new member of the household, a sixth-generation African kitten, named Phoenix Brightstar. She has been, according to her mood, cuddly and affectionate, or wild and playful.

Adding to her ever-growing assortment of toys and playthings, I introduced a wooden, rainbow-colored shaker egg: good for keeping time to a samba band, or arousing the curiosity of a neophyte cat. She batted it around a few times, producing random sounds; and then I thought to show her how it’s meant to be played.

She sat attentively as I started a steady beat: shake, a-shake, a-shake, a shake… slowing to a more incantatory shake… shake… shake… shake.

The kitten’s attention was fully entranced, already. Her eyes were fixed in some indefinite remote space, her posture rigid. What was that, what had happened?

I had crossed the divide between music and sound, culture and nature, human and cat. The effect of such sudden and radical bridging was instantaneous, startling… dare I say, catatonic.

Bonus clip: a more advanced cat listener bobbing to an irresistible doumbek.

Postscript: Later, I sat on a beach beside the harbor and improvised on flute. Playing at will, I became immersed in the flow of the music for ten minutes or so. Too long of a solo, perhaps… since as I drew to a close, a nearby crow chimed in, with caustic staccato, cuing the gull section to launch into their discordant chorus. Well, who am I to say?

Music is in the ear of the beholder.

On a recent long walk, as often happens, a persistent rhythm took shape in my consciousness and stuck, riding along with my steady stride. Which is not to say it was rigidly confined to an arbitrary 4/4 or 12/8 measure. Rather, only after I started thinking about it, did it lend itself to such possibility. As it happened, I did try to time this one to a regular cycle, and found that it settled comfortably ­­– yet with a sense of fluid space – into a span of three full steps before repeating.

When I finally arrived home with the rhythm still strong in my mind, I sat down to notate it, curious to see where the individual notes landed, in what I expected to be a 3/4 measure (i.e., three quarter notes, representing my three walking steps: L R L (then R L R) or conversely, R L R | L R L.

To my annoyance, on paper the notes lined up not in a 12/8 measure, but in 4/4:

_______ _______ _______ _______
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
g d - T P - - T g d - T P T - d

In fact there are eleven notes in this pattern, which only leaves one space if you try to cram them into a 12-beat measure. So how could they line up with my three steps? The obvious solution is to double that 12-bar measure to get 24 total beat-spaces to work with: 11 notes plus 13 spaces. With more room to move in, the pattern might look something like this:

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
g d - T - P - -

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
- - T - g d - T

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
- P - T - - d -

Sure it fits, but is that the same rhythm I heard when walking? It’s not exactly the same as the 4/4 version, but close. Sped up to a brisk walking pace, the spacing shrinks to fit so the difference is moot. Mechanical becomes organic, grid becomes fluid.

Exercise 2.

On my next walk, the same thing happened, with a different rhythm pattern. Later on paper it wanted to translate to the habitual 4/4 measure…

_______ _______ _______ _______
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
x - x - x x - x x - x x x - x x

… when live it was more intuitive, spread into three strides. Perhaps like this?

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
x - - x - - x -

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
x - x - x - x -

_______ _______
| | | | | | | |
x - x - - x x -

Here the difference is more stark, especially in the middle of the phrase. So let’s focus on those bolded notes around the middle sections:

4/4

x x – x x – x x x

12/8

x – x – x – x – x – x – x –

To savor the flavor of this exercise, walk or talk it both ways, swinging back and forth and finding the middle ground. Then play it on the drum, stretching and compressing the spaces as needed between the irregular feel of the first version (from 4/4) and the regular count of the second version (from 12/8).

Conclusion

 This walking/talking/drumming exercise recalls some work I put in early in my journey with the djembe, to practice “rudiments” of stick drumming from a classic Ted Reed booklet. One key learning was to apply different beat counts to the same size measure: 1 stick beat per step, for instance, then 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, up to 7, within the same size step. Even with the most common variation, between 2 beats and 3 (i.e., a “triplet”) you can feel the elastic stretching of time-space.

Bringing it back to djembe patterns, especially when soloing, you have the flexibility to play with the elastic possibilities of time-space, not worrying about counting individual notes, as long as you still land on the larger cycle of measures the other players are following. Or if playing alone, just try to maintain a consistency of feel. As a further challenge, take the same pattern playing in your head, and line it up to a different number of steps (e.g., four steps instead of three). If you can do that and still keep the same feel, you have achieved a fair level of “independence” and freedom while honoring the underlying rhythmic structure. 

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For more adventures in stretching time-space, see Lesson 1 in Roots Jam 3, or the exercises in “Unirhythm” and “Stretchin’ the Swing” in Roots Jam 4.

Get all four Roots Jam books in one convenient volume, Big Tamale (also includes the entertaining memoir Friday Night Jam). 

And now enjoy the bonus track, “Stretchinit,” a bootleg improvisation from Strange Moon (the Moonrise album).       

You may also enjoy the conceptual journey of a footsoldier for natural truth, from “My Country” to “My Earth.”   

                                                                                    

There’s been a recent wave of discussion about an issue that hand drummers have faced (or not) since first beginning our journey with the drum: “cultural appropriation.” With the djembe having its roots in African culture, the question impinges on larger issues of race, identity, poverty, equality, respect.

I would outline my own core beliefs and stance on the matter as follows:

1. I acknowledge that any person has a right to hold and express their own feelings and beliefs and standards about music, culture, or anything else.
2. I hold and express the same right.
3. These rights deserve respect regardless of how we might differ and disagree about the issues we discuss.
4. Our choices and behavior should not be condemned if they cause no harm; conversely, we should take responsibility if our actions do cause harm.
5. Music, as music, has no ownership, boundaries, or natural limits.

In my published collections of African drum rhythms, I have steered for the middle path incorporating both acknowledge and respect for tradtion, and freedom of new creative expression. In Roots Jam 2 (2002) I write:

This marriage of traditional pattern and creative freedom is the essence of my philosophy in Roots Jam (1 and 2), as reflected in the title. In both collections I have tried to be thorough and accurate in my research and transcription of traditional rhythms. I also recognize the inevitable mutation worked by the various translations along the way, as a pattern migrates from the cultural time and place it calls home. To memory’s lapses are added creative patches; the ear plays tricks and the recorder’s pencil errs. When we end up, in North America in 2002, with a dozen “traditional” arrangements of “Kuku,” how can we say which one is “authentic”? (“Tradition and Improvisation”)

The issue doesn’t go away—not in the eighteen years since writing that, or in the 800 years since the beginning of the Mali Empire. In the latest iteration, Roots Jam 4 (2019), I express the same sentiment this way:

It has been twelve years since the publication of Roots Jam 3, and in that time I’ve learned new rhythms from a variety of sources. For Guinea rhythms these include my primary teachers Famoudou Konate, Mamady Keita and Alseny Michel Diallo; for Mali rhythms my teachers in Thailand, Michael Pluznick and Timothy Dabrowski; for Maui rhythms, Rickyshay Cruz, Rick Thomson, Baba Karuna, and Glen Lacy; for tabla rhythms, Damian Finegan and Kevin Randall; for batucada fusion rhythms, Christopher Maseev, Matt Wright, and Sam Miller; for Afro-Cuban rhythms, Bararumba, Nancy Issenman, Tim Lukyn, and Jose Sanchez; for Belize rhythms, Emmeth Young. I have also made use of written and audio sources noted in the reference list at the end of this book.

Where pertinent I credit specific variations to a given teacher or source; but my intention here is to collect, compile and arrange rhythms for understanding and further inspiration, more than as authoritative transcriptions. Even when “translating” directly to this notation form from written sources, I admit to possible errors and so cannot guarantee perfect transmission of another’s teaching.

The diaspora of African music by nature is fluid and flexible to new interpretation—as it was even within the old village cultures, or among the many ballet masters currently arranging traditional rhythms in new ways. The spirit of this collection remains that of the Jam: to inspire dance and creativity with the foundational help of time-tested, even archetypal patterns of percussion. In that vein, please feel free to explore and share these rhythms with others.

Celebrate these gifts in your heart.

When you do, they will naturally be circulated to others.

And you, in turn, will find renewed energy, purpose and commitment to fully living your adventure.

—Mayan Oracle, Adventurer’s Quest

I couple of winters ago I spent some time on the coast of southern Mexico in the state of Oaxaca, and discovered a troupe of young Mexicans playing a high level of West African music. In the hot humid climate the leader’s djembe rang out sharp and clear. How could he keep the skin so tight?

It was mylar, the plastic material you find often on doumbek heads, on floor toms from a drum kit, or on surdos used by samba and batucada bands. These ingenious folks had discovered a method I’d never seen before to maintain the tone of a djembe in all kinds of weather. 

• 

• 

Back home on the “Wet Coast” of BC, my partner’s djembe was perched high on shelf in a warm room, and when I took it down to play one day, I awoke to the drummer’s nightmare: a split skin.

Reheading a djembe takes hours of hard, careful work, and it usually means acquiring and dealing with a good quality goat skin or calf skin: soaking, mounting, stretching, tightening, drying, tightening again. Calf is thicker and sturdier so offers a partial solution to the frequent turnover of your drum head. But now my eyes were open to a new possibility: mylar.

I had saved some discarded heads from the surdo drums I was playing with a local samba band. Voila, mylar for the deheaded djembe!

• 

• 

The material, while thin as a goat skin, is less pliable. To fold it over the bottom ring, so the fold would be sandwiched under the top ring, I had to fold little by little and tape the folds in place. With that done I could mount the head on the drum shell and apply the top ring over the folds. The top ring already had its rope knots in place from the previous head.

• 

• 

One of the trickier parts of placing a new head on a djembe is to keep it even and level as you tighten down all around the drum. I used a bungee to help steady the head on one side while starting to lace the verticals on the other side. Note the loop and free cord that I will tie together temporarily before I go around the drum pulling each vertical tight by hand.

• 

• 

Now that the rings are firmly secured by the verticals, the tape can come off the folds, and the head is approaching full stretch.

Having gone around a few times tightening verticals by hand, it’s time to bring some leverage into play. A stout dunun stick will do the trick. Insert behind the cord, anchor the bottom end under the lower ring, and pull down from the top end. If there’s too much slack, just twirl the stick through another turn or two of the cord before pulling down. This process will also require going around the drum a few times, before you risk breaking the stick. (You could use a length of iron pipe, or a hammer handle, instead). Each time around, you’ll retie that original knot from the hanging loop; and after the final round, give it a more permanent knot to secure before starting the horizontal Mali weave.

• 

• 

Once the verticals are tight, you can trim off the excess material from the folded skin. An exacto knife works perfectly to cut close around the ring and not leave ragged edges to damage your hands when playing. Note the blade is pointing out, to avoid slips and nicks of the blade into the delicate skin. The finished product is ready to go, no drying necessary, and the sound will carry sharp and clear no matter whether on a tropical beach or a northern rainforest. You might even say this kind of head is vegan-friendly, not to mention gluten-free!

Happy drumming…

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More tips on How to Tighten and Tune Your Djembe Head

Free video lesson and diagram of Mali weave tightening knots (horizontal)

I compiled the rhythms in the first Roots Jam book (1996) only five years into my own drum journey. I hit upon a notation method that could help me understand the timing structure of the many new rhythms I was learning, dividing the standard musical bar into visible divisions where the actual beats landed.  I also wanted a form of notation which could easily be communicated in text and by email. The result was the method appearing in the book, like this:

Besides the timing system, I needed a way to indicate both types of beat (bass, tone, slap) and choice of hand (right or left). Babatunde Olatunji’s teaching method, sounding the notes as Gun, Dun, go, do, Pa Ta, provided a useful oral dimension to the drum vocabulary, represented by the shorthand G, D, g, d, P, T. So the example above can be easily read and played while speaking: Gun, Dun, go do Pa Ta.

For later volumes of the Roots Jam series, I adopted a 2-dimensional visual grid system, called box notation. The advantage here is that scanning down the page, to compare rhythm variations or separate instrument parts in an ensemble composition, you can see at a glance where beats line up and where they are offset.

Along the way, I have explored new territories in drum language, with an extensive Afro-Latin collection in Roots Jam 2 (transposing conga beats to djembe); complete arrangements for African dance, with traditional solos, along with original compositions, in Roots Jam 3; and a segue into samba, ballet-style dununs, Garafuna beats, and even tabla rhythms and melodic scales, in Roots Jam 4.

Note: The four volumes of the Roots Jam series are only sequential in that they have grown with the scope of my own learning. Each volume contains material appropriate for any level, from beginner to accomplished soloist.

Besides compiling and arranging rhythms for learning, study and practice, I have wanted to share tips and pointers, insights and lessons from my own experience in drum groups and performance (now three decades long!), to help you on your drummer’s path. These ingredients, covering everything from technique to etiquette and attitude, are also layered in the Roots Jam mix, both for flavor and for healing properties.

The other element added after the publication of Roots Jam 1 is audio and video. There are 28 rudimentary live audio tracks to demonstrate rhythm patterns in Roots Jam 2. The Roots Jam 3 audio collection instead uses Percussion Studio software to build complete arrangements (16 traditional and 27 original) for all the rhythms (the individual beats are live drum samples, but they are pieced together digitally). The written and audio rhythm lessons are now supplemented by free video lessons on YouTube (http://youtube.com/user/nowickg), with separate playlists for djembe (http://bit.ly/1AsaBG1) and dunun (http://bit.ly/2qERhuJ) rhythms.

Finally, a note about format and availability for the above resources. Links for all formats and options appear on a single order page at DjembeRhythms.com:

http://djemberhythms.com/books/order-roots-jam-drum-rhythm-books/

Full size printed books (8.5 X 11 inch) are available from Amazon, along with ebooks for Kindle that scale from the original PDF layout. You can also order ebooks (PDF files), along with all the MP3 audio files, from the DjembeRhythms.com order page, either a la carte or in budget-price combo bundles.

If you’ve joined my mailing list, I will keep you updated on any new material or discount offers, along with free bonus material. To sign up, go to http://djemberhythms.com/sign-up-to-newsletter/

Happy drumming!