Lesson video

Hello, welcome to today's lesson, entitled Context and Technique in West African Drumming.

My name is Mr. Norris, and today, we're gonna be starting to get a taste of some of the rhythms, the sounds, and the instruments that are typical in some of the many musical traditions from West Africa.

Our outcome is I can describe the main techniques used on the djembe and the dunduns and their sonorities.

Some keywords, a djembe.

This is a goblet shaped hand drum originating in West Africa.

Bass, tone, and slap.

These are the low, medium, and high-pitched strikes on the gem base, so different sounds we can create on the djembe.

Dunduns, these are the three bass drums, the kenkeni, sangban, and dundunba, that create an accompanying bassline for the djembe.

And finally, apitua, and this is an iron bell playing a distinct rhythm alongside the dunduns, The first part of today's lesson is looking at the context of West African drumming.

So West Africa is a region consisting of these 16 countries.

Some of these you may have heard of, some you may not have.

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

And we can see there, they're in that western chunk of Africa marked on the map.

The different countries and regions all have their own traditions, their own styles, their own typical pieces and instruments which make them a vast, rich, and complex musical heritage.

And while we're gonna get a taste of some things from some of those traditions, we're only really gonna see the tip of the iceberg here, and there's a huge amount more you could do if you're interested to go and explore the music from this region.

Now, an important thing to say about drumming in West Africa is that it is not just drumming.

Music accompanies different aspects of life, such as marriages, religious practices, and work.

And it's often learned orally, which means it's passed down through generations rather than with notation.

Pieces often start with singing accompanied by clapping.

The drumming is used to reflect the context and also to support dancing, and this is an important element of the celebration and the storytelling process that is at the heart of lots of these musical traditions and styles.

Let's check your understanding.

Which of the following is not a West African country? Is it Guinea, Mali, Egypt, or The Gambia? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer here is Egypt, which while it is on the African continent, it's in North East Africa, not West Africa.

Let's try these examples.

Which of these is not West African country? Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Togo, or Ghana? I'll give you a few seconds.

The correct answer here is Mozambique, which is in South East Africa instead of West Africa.

The djembe drum is commonly used in West African drumming in lots of different styles and traditions from here.

It has three main sounds.

There's a low sound, a mid sound, and a high-pitched sound.

Using just your hands, I'd like to replicate those three different pitches for this task.

The low sound, we do cupped hands, and the mid-pitch sound, we do a palm clap, and for the high-pitch sound, we do a full clap with spread fingers.

Let's have a look at those different techniques in action.

(instructor clapping) Now, I'd like you to pause my video, have a go at recreating those different pitched sounds.

Let's reflect on that task.

So did you manage to create the lower sound? If not, try cupping your hands and hitting palm to palm more closely.

This will create the resonating chamber to make the pitch lower.

And did you manage to create the middle sound? The smaller area the fingers on the palm will make a mid sound, as there is less contact area than the full clap with the fingers spread out.

So make sure it's fingers to the palm with your fingers together rather than spread for that one.

If you wanna spend a bit more time practicing those different pitches, you can pause my video now.

The same part of this lesson is looking at the djembe, dunduns, and their sonority.

The djembe is a goblet drum that's named after its shape because it's the shape of a goblet, and there are lots of different types of goblet drums from different parts of the world.

The djembe is a particularly well-known one.

There are three main sounds created by the djembe.

There's bass, which is the low-pitch sound played in the middle of the head.

Let's see what that looks like.

(drum tapping) Then we've got tone, which is the mid-pitch sound on the edge of the drum with the fingers together.

Let's have a look at that in action.

(drum tapping) And finally, the slap, which is the highest pitch of the three sounds.

It's played on the edge of the drum with the fingers apart, which creates a very specific and distinct ping sort of sound.

Let's see that in action.

(drum tapping) Let's check your understanding.

Which of the following techniques creates the highest pitch? Is it slap, base, or tone? I'll give you a few seconds to work this one out.

And the correct answer here is slap.

That's the highest pitched off the three.

Which creates the middle pitch? Is it slap, base, or tone? Again, I'll give you a few seconds.

And the middle pitch sound is tone.

That's the technique that creates that middle pitch sound.

Now, the dunduns often work together to play a part that accompanies the djembes.

There are three different types of dundun.

We've got the kenkeni, which is the highest pitch of the three and often keeps the pulse.

Let's have a look at kenkeni.

(drum tapping) Then we've got the sangban.

This is the middle pitch of the three, and it plays more complex rhythmic parts than the kenkeni.

Let's have a look at this.

(drum tapping) And finally we've got dundunba, which is the lowest pitch then.

It plays a more traditional bass drum role, which accents the strong beats.

Let's have a look at some dundunbas.

(drum tapping) Now, an apitua is a metal bell which accompanies the drums in a similar way to a hi-hat on a drum kit, that's sort of roughly equivalent roles.

It's sometimes called a banana bell due to its shape.

Now, it's played with a metal stick, which gives it a distinctive, cutting sort of ting sound, and it usually sits on top or attached to the dunduns, often the kenkeni, so players will be playing both the drum and the bell together.

How many different types of dunduns are there? Is it two, three, or four? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer is three.

There are three different types.

Which part of the drum kit plays an equivalent role to the apitua? Is it a kick drum, the snare, or the hi-hat? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer here is the hi-hat.

Well done if you correctly answered both of those questions.

For task B, listen to the following excerpts.

For question one, you are gonna identify which techniques are being used, choosing from base, tone, and slap, and there may be more than one of those being used.

For two, I'd like to replicate the pitches using your hands.

See if you can identify the exact five-note patterns, so the exact order that those pitches are coming in.

And then finally, does the rhythm sound in time? I'd like to justify your answer.

So here's the clip for the first time.

Focus on question one this time.

So identify which techniques are being used, choosing from base, tone, and slap.

Here we go.

(drums tapping) I'll play it two more times for question one.

(drums tapping) Final time for question one.

(drums tapping) So finishing your answer for question one.

And now, I'm gonna play it again.

For question two, I'd like to try and replicate the pattern using the different pitches in your hands.

What's the exact five-note pattern using base, tones, or slaps? Here we go.

(drums tapping) So try and replicate that with your hands and then write down the exact pattern.

Pause my video while you do that.

Finally, for question three, does the rhythm sound in time? Justify your answer.

Here we go, let's listen to it twice.

For the first time (drums tapping) And one last time.

(drums tapping) Pause my video while you're finishing off all your answers.

Let's review this task.

So question one, the techniques used were tone and slap.

Well done if you identify those mid and high-pitched tambres.

The exact five-note pattern was tone, tone, slap, slap, slap.

So well done if you identified and recreated that.

And then does the rhythm sound in time? No, it sounds out of time due to the hesitations on the third and the fourth notes.

So there's no consistent pulse through the notes there, which means it doesn't sound in time.

Third part of today's lesson is looking at performing the djembe parts.

We're gonna create a short performance based on different osinato patterns, so repeating and rhythmic ideas.

First, we're gonna learn about the call.

Now, the call starts and ends a piece, and it also signals changes within that piece.

It's a really important rhythm within different West African drumming traditions.

And it's typically an eight-note pattern, which serves a similar role to a count-in, so it communicates something.

It's not just a rhythm for the sake of having a rhythm, it communicates a message to the other performers and signals what to do.

Listen to it played three times here with a four-beat count-in.

Each time, it gets slightly faster.

Try and familiarize yourself with this rhythm.

Let's have a look.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) <v ->This is how we might notate the call using grid notation.

</v> So we've got the hand pattern showing where to use right and left hands, and then, we're doing this just on the tone.

The rhythm is as follows: one, an, a, e, a three, and four, one, an, a, e, a three, and four, one, an, a, e, a three, and four one, an, a, e, a three, and four, and if you're thinking about right and left hands, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left.

So alternating hands there when we're playing that call.

So the call is played three times, getting faster each time.

I'd like to clap the rhythm along with drum.

Wait for the four-beat count-in each time.

And remember we're using the tone sound on the djembe here, so we're imitating that with the mid sound, which is the palm clap on our hands.

Let's have a go.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) (drum tapping) <v ->So when you were doing that,</v> did you manage to start at the right time, after four beats? Did you copy the rhythm in the video accurately? And then use the right sonorities? In this case, it's that mid sonority, that palm clap.

Well done if you manage to do all three of those.

What is the call? Pause my video and try and answer this.

And the correct answer here is it's a rhythm that starts and ends the piece, and it brings in new parts.

It's important as it is essentially a count-in, so everyone knows when to start.

It's a way of communicating messages between performers.

Well done if you picked up on some of those points.

There are also two djembe parts that we're gonna learn.

This is the first one.

Let's have a look.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) <v ->So this one uses bass and tone,</v> bass, tone-bass-tone, bass, tone-bass-tone, bass, tone-bass-tone, bass, tone-bass-tone, bass, tone-bass-tone, bass, tone-bass-tone, and that bass is really emphasizing each strong beat, one, two, three, and four.

Sometimes, it's useful to have ways of remembering rhythm.

So if you can think of a phrase or a pattern that helps you to remember that rhythm, that might be really useful.

The second djembe part is slightly different.

Let's have a look at it and see if you can have a think about how you could remember this pattern as well.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) <v ->So clearly, that's quite different</v> to the original djembe part.

We're using just tone for the first part of the rhythm, tone, tone, tone, tone-tone, bass-bass, tone, tone, tone, tone-tone, bass-bass, and we're still alternating right and left.

That fourth beat, that end of the rhythm in particular, might take a bit of practice just really making sure you're being precise with the rhythm on it.

Here, you're gonna clap the first djembe rhythm along with the drum.

Wait for the four-beat count-in and finish with the call.

Remember, for this, you need the low-pitch sound, which is bass, and the mid sound, which is tone.

Let's go.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) <v ->When you were doing that,</v> did you manage to start at the right time after four beats? Did you manage to copy the rhythm accurately in the video? And did you use the right sonorities, so low, mid-low or mid, mixing those two different sounds? Well done if you managed to do all three.

Now, let's do the same with the second djembe rhythm.

Remember to wait for the four-beat count-in, and to finish with the call.

For this, we still need the low sonority, that's bass, and the mid sonority, that's tone.

Here we go.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (drum tapping) <v ->So when you were doing that,</v> did you manage to start at the right time after four beats, copy the rhythm accurately and use the right sonorities in the right order? Mid, mid, mid, mid-mid, low-low, mid, mid, mid, mid-mid, low-low.

Well done if you managed to do that.

So the structure of our performance has five short sections, call, then djembe part one, then the call, then djembe part two, and then we'll finish with a call.

Let's have a look at all those together.

(upbeat drum music) Which of these two rhythms is djembe part two? Think carefully about what it sounds like, and then see which one matches.

Pause my video if you need to while we're doing this.

And the correct answer here is the first one is djembe part two.

It's that one that has tone on each beat, and then the more complex pattern towards the end.

Well done if you've got that correct.

For task C, you're gonna prepare and practice your rhythmic performance.

Here's some success criteria.

Make sure you've practiced the call section, the djembe one section and the djembe two section, and then you put them together in this structure.

So call, and then part one or djembe one, then the call, then part two, and then the call.

Make sure you keep a consistent tempo and start off practicing slow.

That will help you get this more accurate and more together.

Pause my video while you have a go at this task.

For the final part of this task, listen to this performance.

Is it the same or different to the previous one that we listened to? Why? Let's have a look.

(drum tapping) Pause my video while you're coming up with your answer.

Here, it's the same piece that we listened to previously 'cause the rhythms and the structure are the same.

However, there is a difference, and that's that it is at a slower tempo.

So everything is performed slower.

Well done if you picked up on that difference.

Let's review today's lesson.

The 16 countries that make up West Africa each have their own drumming traditions and styles.

Common instruments used are djembe, apitua, and dunduns, And the dunduns consist of kenkeni, sangban, and dundunba.

The djembe has three main sounds: bass; tone; and slap.

The call begins and ends a piece, it brings in new parts, and it uses just tone.

And then finally, we've created a short rhythmic performance using typical techniques from the drumming traditions of West Africa.

So I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson where we've dipped our toe in at some West African drumming techniques and rhythms, and hopefully you've managed to put some of those together in that performance task at the end.

Thanks for taking part, and I'll see you in another lesson.