Concert Djembe

[James]

So correct me if I'm wrong, this is how I remember Famoudou telling it...

During some down time while Famoudou was in the ballet he was sitting around a fire tuning a djembe and chilling with a friend and fellow djembe player.

One of them played a few notes and the other added a few more and they went back and forth like this for a while... over time this developed into what became known as Concert Djembe.

A sort of theatrical dialogue, which show cases the djembe and it's communication.

Famoudou recorded this piece on Hamana Foli Kan.

You can listen to a sample of it on Amazon.

I saw a video on youtube, with a version of it played by some people in Brazil or South America. I can't find it now though... Does anyone know the one I'm talking about?

[Dennis103]

This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9M1nSxr20
It's brilliant anyway. The dialogue starts at 2 minutes but you can have a quick check at 6 minutes to see if this is the one.

[Nodrog]

Hi there,

I've just watched that 'duelling djembes' video. To me as a novice djembefola, that was impressive stuff. I've played in jazz bands all my adult life and that was real jazz right there. When I play my djembe I'm not at all interested in being absolutely traditional African style because I mainly want to play as a rhythm accompaniment to acoustic guitar and bass.

Some of the sounds them guys were producing sounds like how I play. I change the pitch of the notes by damping in different areas. I don't think about what I'm doing, it just happens and it's not till I saw these guys doing a similar thing that I became more aware of my playing. The main difference is that these guys are playing in front of other drums and probably are getting a lot more volume from their drums than when I play. I mentioned in a thread somewhere else about a one finger slap right on the edge,-- well, there he was doing just that. As you can tell, I loved that performance. Thanks for posting it.

I'm thinking of getting some of them bracelet bell things for a little 'top end' when we jam. Could someone tell me what the proper name for these are and does anyone have experience of using them?

Thanks, Gordon.

[e2c]

I change the pitch of the notes by damping in different areas. I don't think about what I'm doing, it just happens and it's not till I saw these guys doing a similar thing that I became more aware of my playing. The main difference is that these guys are playing in front of other drums and probably are getting a lot more volume from their drums than when I play. I mentioned in a thread somewhere else about a one finger slap right on the edge,-- well, there he was doing just that.

I hear you on this; it's something I do a lot, though with certain strokes, I don't have much volume and probably wouldn't be able to play them properly in the kind of concert setting we're talking about here (unamplified, over many other drums).

One of my favorite things re. using natural skins on drums (any kind of drum) is the range of subtle changes in tone, timbre, etc. that are available.

[Nodrog]

I agree 100% with your comments about the volume. I think when playing at lower volumes, there are so many subtleties that can be produced which when striking the skin much harder or faster cannot be achieved in the same way. Another good sound using damping is between a nice deep bass hit alternating with a damped tone sound but kind of use the bass hit as the damping for the tone. This almost gives a kind of wah wah effect like on a guitar. I just mess around sometimes and get a lot of these sounds just by accident. Then I try to delve in and find out what I'm actually doing to get that particular sound.

It's all very therapeutic and interesting at the same time. Love it.

Gordon.

[e2c]

As much as I love both djembe and dununs, I'm not a fan of all loud, all the time. That works great when playing outdoors, but indoors, not so much.

I think these drums have incredible dynamic range and am always happy to hear/see people working with that, rather than focusing on full-tilt (loud, fast) playing alone.

P.S.: Muting and pitch-bending on dununs is *lots* of fun! The effects - and subtle changes in tonal color - can be pretty amazing.

[James]

Wicked. Keanie has found a clip:
The first video listed here:
Concert djembe video