Djembe Ninja training

[James]

This looks to be a Thomas Guei solo phrase, looks like it could be a great speed building exercise

Do you have any other exercises that you've worked on much to build speed, and technique?

I'm still working on tone-slap, like that solo phrase Mamady loves so much. You can hear it on that Lekuele video on Vimeo.

[Rhythm House Drums]

I've been doing a speed/technique building exercise for a while.. I think I came up with it, but I'm sure it's been done or I pulled it from somewhere...

in 4/4 (could be modified for 6/8 as well) you start with tones, play 16, or 4 cycles of four. Then the 1 becomes a bass, play 4 cycles, then 1 2 are bass - 4 cycles, 123- 4 cycles. Then 4 cycles of all basses, then the 1 becomes a slap, you repeat the same countdown until you are playing 4 cycles of slaps, then your 1 becomes a tone... once you are at all tones you speed it up and go again until you get sloppy. Then take a short break and lead with your other hand.

It's amazing how tired you get when you start playing this really fast. My biggest problem is when I'm going pretty fast and am at my 3 tones and a slap on the 4, I want to play triplets - slap because I play that phrase some.

Hope this is clear enough.. it totally works your arms till they cramp when you are pushing it.

I think 100BMP is a good pace for beginners to have a goal towards while getting a clean sound. I'm pretty clean and at my comfort zone at around 130bmp, and can't hold down 150 for too long without messing up or cramping up after doing 130 for a bit... and I feel that I'm not playing real clean at 150.

Probably a good idea to use a metronome also to make you push for it

Been thinking about doing a short video or even a play-along audio track that would start slower and build up each time through... but it's a pretty simple phrase once you figure it out, just long.

[bkidd]

RHDs suggestion is something i totally follow. any practice of starting with a metronome at a low tempo and then building up to one's max is great training. i typically do something like 110bpm and go up to 150-160bpm for binary patterns and maybe 130bpm to 200bpm for ternary.

for just basic technical chops, i do something similar as RHD. just make up patterns of slaps, basses, and tones, trying to play them cleanly in time. one binary exercise that i like is to play a pattern of threes inside four, alternating tones and slaps.

below are four possible ways of combining tones and slaps.

Code: Select all

1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...
ttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttsttstts

1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...
sttsttsttsttsttssttsttsttsttsttssttsttsttsttstts

1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...
sstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsst

1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...
tsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstsstss


another cool exercise is the alternating flam technique that mamady teaches. it's been talked about in other threads (can't find them now, but michi posted a video for balakuladjan techniques at mini guinea a few years ago and the rhythm djigue that mamady created employs these hand techniques). the idea amounts to playing a flam followed by a single hit with the same hand that initiated the flam. followed by a flam that now leads with with the other hand.

for example, play a flam where the lead hit is your right hand, follow this with a single hit (tone, bass, or slap) on your right hand, then play a flam where the lead hit is your left hand followed by a single hit with your left hand (tone, bass, or slap). repeat this overall pattern. these all fit into a binary rhythm, which is a cool, but challenging technique. the general pattern can be described symbolically as:

Code: Select all

1...2...3...4...
%X$x%X$x%X$x%X$x


where:
% is a flam that leads with the right hand (e.g. Tt or Ss or St or Ts or whatever combination you like)
X is a single sound that leads with the right hand (e.g. T - tone , B - bass, S - slap)
$ is a flam that leads with the left hand (e.g. tT or sS or tS or sT or whatever combination you like)
x is a single sound that leads with the left hand (e.g. T - tone , B - bass, S - slap)

finally, a last cool technique that i learned from bolokada conde is a triplet technique that's fun to work out so it sounds clean. i'll outline the basic idea with slap flams and then upper case letters for your dominant hand and lower case letter for your non-dominant hand.

Code: Select all

1..2..3..4..
&Ts%St&Ts%St


& - slap flam that leads with your dominant hand
% - tone flam that leads with your dominant hand
T or S - tone or slap with your dominant hand
t or s - tone or slap with your non-dominant hand

these are just some fun techniques i enjoy working on. they really allow for a lot of creative combining of sounds.

happy drumming!
-brian

[Dugafola]

are you sure on that Bolokada phrase?

[bkidd]

i'm pretty sure that's what he showed last time he was in berkeley. i thought the phrase included a tone pickup, but that was offbeat. do you remember something different? maybe i need to go back to the recordings. let me double check.

[Dugafola]

he's taught me this:

t ss t s tt

with the first tone being the pickup and the slap flam (ss) being the downbeat.

[bkidd]

right, i wasn't sure if the second flam was a slap or a tone. thanks for reminding me. i'll fix the above phrase.