I’ve not made any posts for some time now. Been really busy with work and other stuff, and spending plenty of time in my favourite place, bed! Have a look at millbrook matresses – if you had one of these you would spend plenty of time in bed too…
Anyway, here’s a good lesson I found. It’s one of the expert village series which are generally a waste of time, but this guy seems pretty decent. Have a look and enjoy.
Something a little different for you here. Tuning congas to a specific key is not that common but this guy has tuned 7 drums to E minor and performs quite a spectacular solo on them. If I had those drums tuned like that I really could spend all day messing about with them!
Just found this interesting video on youtube. It’s from a discovery programme called “How it’s made” and this particular episode shows how modern Latin American Conga drums are made. Handy if you want to make your own! Or maybe just interesting if you want to know a little more how your drums are made. I found the most interesting bit to be the bit about the skin.
Here are some useful pages for those of you just getting into the world of the African djembe. First up is the djembe Wiki which contains a good amount of beginner knowledge and reference material.
Once you have your djembe then you are going to need to tune up. There are now modern drums on the market which have modern key tuning systems which make the process very easy. If you are a traditionalist though, you might not like that idea and might have a rope tuned djembe. If this is the case then you will need to learn to tune it up. This page has a good guide on tuning with ropes.
Finally, here is a very basic page, but one that shows you some basic rhythms to get you going.
The djembe is one of the most common african drums. Being a multi-instrumentalist and someone who likes to create a wide range of music, I have managed to blend it with everything from chilled out jazz chords to grinding heavy metal guitar riffs. However, this video describes some of the uses that the djembe has in its original African culture.
I love the ease with which this guy gets great sounds out of his conga drums. His sound is quite original. Stuff like this really inspires me.
More of this stuff to come along with some lessons in future blog posts.
As a musician who’s always been interested in percussion, I’ve worked my way through western, asian, afrian and latin instruments. Recently I’ve discovered the Native American Drum. Here’s a very basic intro for the uninitiated.