Hello from Germany...

[Erny]

Hi,

I am Erny and new to this community but not new to hand-drumming. Drumming since 5 years in workshops, drum-circles and together with friends, drumming is very important for me to get rid of the daily working stress and get a free mind. I play different djembes, genuine ones and others not supposed to be djembes. My teachers have a traditional orientation and thus I am most frequently playing rhythms of this kind but also composing patterns for my own. My actual teacher is coming from Senegal and a big dancer too.

The board-language is not my mother-tongue, I suppose this doesn´t disturb to much?

I hope to be able to contribute to different threads around handdrumming in general.

See you...
...Erny

[bubudi]

welcome, erny!

your english reads well for the most part, and my guess is that no-one here is that shy that we won't seek clarification if we don't understand something

so djembe has brought you some mental focus... please tell us more about that.

[Erny]

Hi Bubudi,

first of all thanks for your welcome.

The mental focus, yes, originally not intended, but it really seems to be there.

This also depends on the rhythm itself, new, complicated and unknown rhythms also can result in a kind of stress but in most cases drumming with others increases high spirits and brings me to "another stage of awareness". Did you ever hear voices or singing after a longer drumming-session with djembes, dundun, sangpan, kenkeni and bells? Me sometimes!

Furthermore drumming is able to show us that there is a perfect stage of performing without direct mental control e.g. you are drumming quickly without beeing conscious and if you start to do mental control, you try to analyse your beats, it does not work any more.

Maybe this is a kind of a complicate explanation but you will surely understand what I mean.

...Erny

[rachelnguyen]

Hi Erny,

Wilkomen!

I, too, sometimes hear singing voices when I play!

And I have the same experience that if I think about what I am doing, I make mistakes. If I just let my body do what it knows how to do, I can play much faster and more accurately. (And with more feel, LOL.)

No worries about your English. As Bubudi said, if there are any questions, we will ask.

All love+
Rachel

[Erny]

Hi Rachel,

thanks for your "Willkommen", too.

I am happy to see that there are other people having made the same experience concerning the above described things as hearing voices and so on..

Tomorrow I´ll get back my Mali-drum, where the head needed to be repaired. Its goat-skin used to be tuned very high and "died" with a big bang standing in the corner of the livingroom 2 weeks ago.
I hope it´ll sound as good as it did before!

Keep on drumming...
...Erny

[Paul]

Great Im not going mad (maybe) I hear stuff all the time... In fact I heard about a man who stromed out of a class because he was sure somebody was keeping a bird cage under their chair which he thought was cruel (this maybe an urban legend)..

I had a very strong sense of this the other day playing soli.... mind you I caught one of my students practicing his throat singing while we were playing the other day..

[bubudi]

you dublin drummers are a motley crew

[Paul]

The guy who stormed out was german and the throat singer croatian, so we are a multicultural motley crew...