African Drumming Stuffs

10-1-11

For the past two days, I have partaken in some sick awesome Africa drumming. It may be one of the more legit things I have done in my life. Two days ago (9/29) there was a dance workshop for our group to be a part of. Since I have a general distaste for dancing, unless it is swing dancing, I finagled my way into the drumming group. For maybe two hours or so I participated by playing the djembe with a simple pattern: 1-+-2-e. Of course African beats are strongly based on the off beats, so it is more like this: +-1-+-a. It was a lot of fun, and my hands kind of hurt afterwards, since the djembe is played with your palms, but it was totally worth it. Also, the odd beat in each measure is actually closer to a triplet than a sixteenth, but it was easier to notate it for this purpose with what I notated it with.

Yesterday (9/30), I was able to join with another group. This group is a group of younger people (they were younger than me), and they were absolutely phenomenal. Once again, I played a simple rhythm, known as the gallop, because it sounds like a horse galloping. With a triplet feel, it would be any two consecutive notes, depending on what the song calls for. Fortunately, the instrument that I was playing this time (I forgot the name of it) used sticks, so my still recovering hands were able to take a break. With this group, there were also a bunch of dancers who were also young and also phenomenal. They knew what was up. I can’t take credit for the connections, for that belongs to Leah, one of the girls I am travelling with who is interested in African drumming. She found someone named Etↄ, (eh-tow) who is part of a few ensembles around town, including this group.

After we played with these kids for about two hours, we went to a touristy area of town to a place called Oasis to here Etↄ play with another group called Nyame Tseate (I think). A few other girls in the group also joined us to watch the performance. After watching Nyame Tseate, I have no idea what else there is in this world for me to see. The drummers were absolutely flawless, and then the performance was even better. After some traditional dancing, five of the performers began doing acrobatics while the rest continued to play the drums. I have never seen anything like it. I honestly don’t even understand what they were doing but my mind was completely blown. It was absolutely ridiculous. Guys were standing on other guys heads, flips were happening left and right, and then people started flying. It was perhaps one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.

I should perhaps explain how the drumming works. To be honest, I can’t really discuss it for sure, since I am so new to it. What I have gathered, though, is that the drumming is a call and response with the dancers. The drums help instigate the story that the dancing is trying to tell. Usually one dance will happen until the main drummer for the song plays a certain rhythm to tell the dancers to move to the next dance. The music itself, to the untrained ear, sounds like a lot of noise with a center emerging every once in a while. This could not be farther from the truth. Every drummer has a unique part to play, and without even one piece present, it does not sound right. Drumming is a heaps ton of fun!