Dodgey Mendiani Sangban?

[James]

No comments?

How to play the wrong drum rhythm?

[djembefeeling]

of course, lots of comments:

my favorite video of the year, much better than the notorious FOLI!

And I am pretty sure this guy learned the rhythm from a Senegalese source. The guys from dance class where I used to play know Soli/Suku under the name "Mendiani", while they call Mendiani "Domba" and start the first beat on the first stroke of the sangban.

[bkidd]

It's possible that he learned this from a Senegalese source, but the teacher is clear that this is how Mendiani is played in Guinea.

Cheers,
-Brian

[michi]

Seeing that we are commenting on this…

His left hand needs a lot of work. Half his tones on the left come out as slaps.

Obviously, that's not Mendiani from Guinea, not even allowing for different "versions" or regional differences. As you say, it's Soli/Suku.

I've heard Mamady talk about the problems with traditional Malinke rhythms taught by Senegalese teachers. He says that people learned something in Guinea, didn't remember it right, and took it to Senegal, where everyone copied the wrong thing. I can understand why he gets upset about this; it really destroys the musical heritage of his culture.

On the positive side, the video is completely in keeping with X8's reputation as a djembe supplier…

Michi.

[Djembe-nerd]

Oh ! Its X8 again !!!!!

[e2c]

I will not comment on that remark by MK re. Senegalese teachers, except to say that I hope some people who are from Senegal give him good, spirited replies.

Edited to add: link to a post in another thread that clearly shows (via maps) that the geographical boundary between Guinea and Senegal isn't necessarily a cultural boundary per se...

sept-2011-zaouli-f65/zaouli-kuku-t3310.html#p22434

[michi]

I will not comment on that remark by MK re. Senegalese teachers, except to say that I hope some people who are from Senegal give him good, spirited replies.

Just because someone is from Senegal doesn't mean that they don't know their Malinke rhythms. One of my teachers, Boubacar, is from Senegal, and he takes authenticity very seriously.

On the other hand, I suspect that Mamady must have come across more than a fair share of mangled Malinke rhythms in Senegal, otherwise he would not have said this.

Edited to add: link to a post in another thread that clearly shows (via maps) that the geographical boundary between Guinea and Senegal isn't necessarily a cultural boundary per se...

Yes, there are Malinke in the eastern part of Senegal, and they've been there for centuries. (The two maps in the linked-to post don't show this though; the first one doesn't mark ethnic regions, and the second one only shows Ivory Coast.)

Regardless, I suspect that Mamady is right, at least when it comes to the Dakar drummers, who've never been anywhere near traditional village life. (BTW, he's not gentle when it comes to accuracy of traditional rhythms with the Conakry guys either. Same problem: grown up in the city and no to at most cursory knowledge of the tradition.)

Regardless, the rhythm on the X8 site has nothing to do with Mendiani, that's for sure. And anyone playing the sangban for Mendiani with the first open note on the 1 is also not playing Mendiani. (And from what I've been told, that's how it often is played in Senegal. It might still be a nice rhythm, well executed, and with great musicianship. But Mendiani it ain't…)

Cheers,

Michi.

[e2c]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been under the impression that MK was referring to Senegalese drummers who live and teach in the US.

Also, MK teaches a heck of a lot of rhythms that are not Malinke (Yankadi and Makru, Sorsonet, Bao etc. etc. etc.). No offense intended toward you or MK, but just because someone played a ballet arrangement for years does not necessarily mean that they know about music and dance from other cultures (inside their home country or not) from an insider's perspective.

And that is one big reason that certain aspects of MK's approach rub me the wrong way, but... that's not what the thread is about.

i welcome clarification on specifics here re. Senegalese teachers, etc. I think it would be helpful to all concerned. I know that Monette spoke about it very briefly toward the end of her interview with James, but she was not specific, either.

It's a tough issue for people in the US, in part because many of the people (drummers and dancers) who pioneered W. African drum and dance here in the 60s and 70s - in the black community - are from Senegal. Since the US drum/dance community as a whole is still fractured along both racial and "who's your teacher" lines, I think it would be helpful to all involved if this was presented more clearly.

As is, it's very easy to make assumptions - as I clearly have.

and even if he is talking about people who live and work in Senegal, I think it would be a good idea to note Senegalese teachers (there and abroad) who do good work.

(Some of this is, I think, also about the branding of MK and his style of playing, which is an inherent pitfall when marketing series of instructional DVDs plus remarking about those Senegalese teachers, whoever they are... )

Maybe I'm not being diplomatic, but...

[michi]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been under the impression that MK was referring to Senegalese drummers who live and teach in the US.

No, definitely not. He was talking about other areas (non-Malinke) in West Africa and saying that, if you want to learn the traditional rhythms, you need to be careful learning from someone without a Malinke background. He then recited a whole list of rhythms and where you shouldn't learn them. "You don't learn Mendiani in Senegal. You don't learn dundunba in Conakry. You don't learn Kuku in Bamako."

He also was quite clear that he was talking about the traditional stuff. If you want learn ballet style, different rules apply.

Also, MK teaches a heck of a lot of rhythms that are not Malinke (Yankadi and Makru, Sorsonet, Bao etc. etc. etc.). No offense intended toward you or MK, but just because someone played a ballet arrangement for years does not necessarily mean that they know about music and dance from other cultures (inside their home country or not) from an insider's perspective.

We've had discussions around this before. He's spent a lot of time in the ballet, obviously. But he grew up and learned djembe the traditional way in the village, and he was already a very accomplished traditional drummer before he joined the ballet. (Heck, he was good enough to make it into Ballet Djoliba!)

So, I believe that Mamady does indeed know the tradition.

As to non-Malinke rhythms that Mamady teaches, yes, his version of Sunu doesn't have the same swing that you would hear in Bamako, for example. On the other hand, I suspect that Ivorians would give him the nod on the way he plays Zaouli or Abondan.

And that is one big reason that certain aspects of MK's approach rub me the wrong way, but... that's not what the thread is about.

Well, if we are talking accuracy and keeping the traditional rhythms authentic, Mamady is the real deal to me, certainly when it comes to his Malinke repertoire. I have been told incredible nonsense by some teachers, some of whom are considered masters. Yet, the stories they tell about the rhythms are sometimes wrong, or sometimes they have no idea and make up some bullshit story on the spot.

When I get an answer to a question from Mamady, I get an answer with honesty and authority. If Mamady doesn't know the answer, he simply says "I don't know". He's brutally honest about that, and not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something. That gives me a lot of confidence in what I hear when he does answer.

i welcome clarification on specifics here re. Senegalese teachers, etc. I think it would be helpful to all concerned. I know that Monette spoke about it very briefly toward the end of her interview with James, but she was not specific, either.

I'm afraid that I can't help there. My only significant first-hand experience of a Senegalese teacher is Bouba, and I believe that he knows what he's talking about.

It's a tough issue for people in the US, in part because many of the people (drummers and dancers) who pioneered W. African drum and dance here in the 60s and 70s - in the black community - are from Senegal. Since the US drum/dance community as a whole is still fractured along both racial and "who's your teacher" lines, I think it would be helpful to all involved if this was presented more clearly.

Well, all this bickering among the various drums and dance groups in the US I'm sure isn't just caused by Mamady. I have absolutely no doubt that pretty much all the parties involved are adding to the conflict. Blaming it all on Mamady would seem naive.

and even if he is talking about people who live and work in Senegal, I think it would be a good idea to note Senegalese teachers (there and abroad) who do good work.

I agree. Speaking in the positive is usually more effective than in the negative.

(Some of this is, I think, also about the branding of MK and his style of playing, which is an inherent pitfall when marketing series of instructional DVDs plus remarking about those Senegalese teachers, whoever they are... )

I agree, the potential conflict of interest is obvious. On the other hand, I don't believe that is why he said this though. And he's not singling out Senegalese in particular. Heck, I've heard him slag off much worse against many of his own countrymen. I've heard him say on numerous occasions that you can't learn traditional rhythms in Conakry because most of the teachers there have no clue about the tradition. I think he cares about the authenticity of the tradition. Whether it's a Senegalese teacher or a Guinean teacher doesn't matter. What matters is whether the stuff is genuine.

Cheers,

Michi.

[bkidd]

e2c wrote:
Also, MK teaches a heck of a lot of rhythms that are not Malinke (Yankadi and Makru, Sorsonet, Bao etc. etc. etc.). No offense intended toward you or MK, but just because someone played a ballet arrangement for years does not necessarily mean that they know about music and dance from other cultures (inside their home country or not) from an insider's perspective.

I think this is an interesting point that goes beyond MK and speaks to everyone on the board. Most of us are trying to learn music and/or dance from another culture. We all do our best to get things right and go to teachers we can trust. With time, some people become quite proficient musicians such that they would be able to play along with the insiders even if they themselves weren't raised in that culture. I know that this is something I'm working on.

What's more, some people are able to pick up material they've learned and then transmit this to others. One aspect of studying music and teaching is to try and understand what is the heart of a particular piece so that he or she can pass it on to others. We've had lengthy discussions on this board about just this idea. Some of us are very interested in categorizing rhythms, styles, or regions. To do this requires study, experience, and playing with people from these regions or who exemplify a particular style. Music is actually an interesting thing because there are definite styles and genres (e.g. jazz, rock, blues, etc.), and we've talked about this within the context of West African drumming, e.g. different countries, players, and regions. Isn't it okay to teach something to others if you haven't grown up as an insider? If this weren't true, then most of the teachers in the US wouldn't be allowed to teach.

In the case of MK, he travelled around Guinea during his years in the Ballet and spent some time in Ivory Coast post-Ballet. I know that he talked/played with musicians and tried to capture the essence of their tradition, which I suspect is what he is passing along for non-Malinke material (I'll have to verify that next time I talk with him). I'm good with this approach. For me, it's okay to have this type of direct experience and pass it along as traditional. Of course there is a difference between doing this and growing up in that tradition, but for my money I trust MKs integrity and portrayal of these traditions because of his honesty about what he knows and doesn't.

Most of us on this board are actually sampling music as outsiders. Some of us have more direct experience with insiders, and some of us are more honest about how we know what we know. This is not to imply that people on the board are being misleading or dishonest (quite the contrary as I've found people on this board to have superb honesty and integrity). One of the trickiest thing for me when I was first started to learn drumming was verifying the integrity of information. This isn't easy and some teachers are more open about their sources than others. As we've talked about in other threads, one challenge with teachers is there isn't necessarily an absolute truth with drumming. Regional variation abounds and story telling is an artform (he with the best story often wins). It takes a long time to hear enough stories, gain experience from reliable teachers, and then sort out what's more likely.

Best,
-Brian

[e2c]

michi - I'm *not* blaming Mamady for problems in the US drum/dance community. But the fact is that most folks who've been part of all-black (or mostly black) drum/dance groups in the US have been taught by Senegalese instructors, and they know the Senegalese version of Mendiani. (And other rhythms and dances as well.) Also, many of those drum/dance groups sponsor trips to Senegal every year, so it's entirely possible that some of the teachers that MK has said were wrong are, in fact, people who teach American students over there.

I don't really know for sure, though - and it's a complex and emotional issue, because someone who comes along 30-40 years after some of the older teachers and (without having much interaction with them) says "The Senegalese do this wrong" is - inadvertently or not - opening up a real can of worms.

Believe me, I wish that wasn't the case, but...

Regarding travel by the ballets and all that, point taken, but in many cases, the ballet arrangements of non-Malinke rhythms are adapted to fit djembe and duns. a fair few of them are played on other instruments entirely in their home regions, so already, that's a huge step away from tradition.

In saying that, I don't mean to villainize MK - or anyone else - merely to state what (I think) is the obvious: it's not what they play Down Home. Does it mean that his arrangements are bad? No. but it does poke justifiable holes in the claim that he is a traditionalist regarding non-Malinke rhythms.

Guinea is a big country and (to my eyes) very diverse, in terms of the peoples who live there as well as their music. And we in the West don't know very much about all that, I think - I mean, where are the Fula teachers from Futa Djallon, or teachers from the coastal areas, or... ???

Malinke music is only one small part of the picture - perhaps it's better to say "mosaic," since those are formed from small pieces that blend in the eye of the viewer and "read" as something quite different than scattered pieces of tile.

It does trouble me that MK hasn't singled out any Malinke teachers from Senegal as keepers of the flame - at least, not that I know of. (I'm sure he knows some for whom he has high regard.)

But ... when the context of the original remark is lost (referring specifically to people in Dakar, or wherever), then the message becomes distorted, perhaps through no fault of MK's. (Reminds me of that kid's game that we call "telephone" here in the US, where someone whispers a sentence into the next person's ear and they do the same and it ends up being incredibly garbled.)

Ultimately, I think there actually has been a modernization of tradition in terms of what's taught in the West, and MK has been in the vanguard there. Maybe adaptation is a better word to describe what's happened (and what's continuing to happen), and I think it's a good thing, because the music is reaching so many more people.

By the same token, studying with an African teacher who lives in a First World country is not quite the same as spending time in the back country with someone who's never been anywhere close to Bamako, Conakry, Dakar or wherever, no?

*

I want to clarify one other point, and that is that I am troubled (and have been for a long time) when it seems that one person is being held up as the representative of the music of an entire country.

An example: a Turkish master musician named Kudsi Ergüner. If you hear a recording of classical Turkish music that features a flutist, chances are that KE is the soloist. (Unless you're in Turkey and actually have access to recordings by someone other than him.) He *is* the face of this particular tradition in the West, and has made lots and lots of recordings that are (supposedly) authoritative in terms of his interpretations of both classical and Sufi ceremonial repertoire.

For over 20 years, I've been wanting to hear someone else play these pieces, because I *know* there has to be another way (likely many other ways) of performing them.

Now, i doubt that KE would say that he's Mr. Be-All and End-All, but publicists and record companies tend to promote him in that way, and likely he's going to be the only artist anyone who has a less than obsessive interest in Turkish music will ever hear.

It's not exactly the same as MK's situation, but it's similar.

[bkidd]

I don't really know anything about the Senegalese-Guinea rift and finger-pointing that has occurred, and may still be going on in the US (or around the world for that matter), so I can't speak directly to that part of this thread.

Regarding presenting traditional material though.

m e2c wrote:
Regarding travel by the ballets and all that, point taken, but in many cases, the ballet arrangements of non-Malinke rhythms are adapted to fit djembe and duns. a fair few of them are played on other instruments entirely in their home regions, so already, that's a huge step away from tradition.

In saying that, I don't mean to villainize MK - or anyone else - merely to state what (I think) is the obvious: it's not what they play Down Home. Does it mean that his arrangements are bad? No. but it does poke justifiable holes in the claim that he is a traditionalist regarding non-Malinke rhythms.

MK is the first to point out that many of the non-Malinke rhythms are traditionally played on other instruments and that he has adapted them to djembe and dununs. In every class I've taken with him, MK goes to great lengths to describe these instruments and how they are played in the traditional context. I guess I don't see a problem with taking various voices from a traditional ensemble played on another instrument and adapting it to a djembe and dunun ensemble when this is explicitly acknowledged. I'm curious e2c, have you taken a workshop from MK and experienced these claims or heard them second hand? I ask because the places you're poking holes at and some of the statements run counter to my experience with MK. The last thing I want to be a defender of MK or get into a he-said-she-said argument. It's more that all of the fighting within the drum community still catches me by surprise and makes me sad.

Best,
-Brian

[e2c]

Does he ever have any of those traditional instruments in his classes and demo them, so that people can hear what the music sounds like when played on them?

And no, I've not had the opportunity to take any classes with him. I'd like to, but that would involve travel to the other end of the country and it's a bit out of my price range at the present time.

The misunderstandings, prejudices, infighting etc. make me sad, too. I think, though, that it's indicative of something that isn't going to disappear anytime soon... though maybe in a few generations?

I guess I don't see a problem with taking various voices from a traditional ensemble played on another instrument and adapting it to a djembe and dunun ensemble when this is explicitly acknowledged.

Nor do I, but i do have a problem with calling it "traditional" when it's not being played on the original instruments. It's an adaptation - and if it's acknowledged as such, fine.

but i do see people talking as if MK plays everything traditionally, and it's not so. (Given the criteria I just mentioned.) There is - imo - absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I think it's helpful to be specific about these things. Trad. Malinke rhythms from where he grew up? sure. But are ballet arrangements strictly trad.? No, they're not - they are both an adaptation of and an expansion of tradition. They're "in the style of" what's played back home, but they are not exactly what actually is played back home, no? (Village fetes being a whole different kettle of fish to stage productions - for one thing, there are arrangements being used; the dance is choreographed and so on.)

I don't expect any stage presentation of "traditional" music - from anywhere - to be the same as what you or I might see and hear if we visited wherever and were able to hear the music and see the dance in a strictly "local" context. If anything, the W. African ballets were part of a trend that went far beyond Africa, to places like Mexico, with its famous Ballet Folklorico, or the many Soviet-era music and dance ensembles that presented various traditions from the former USSR. There was a move to preserve and re-create folk traditions in many, many countries - the W. Africans got to it a bit later than many.

[Dugafola]

It does trouble me that MK hasn't singled out any Malinke teachers from Senegal as keepers of the flame - at least, not that I know of. (I'm sure he knows some for whom he has high regard.)

I've asked both Famoudou and MK this exact question and they didn't offer any names. MK said that maybe there's probably a few old guys in the village that are still upholding the tradition. FK didn't say anyone...not even his sons or nephews. there are a few Masters that i think are doing an incredible job, but it's definitely not my place to say.

haters are gonna hate. that's never gonna change. people can go off what other people have taught them or said in regards to MK, but it's not gonna be transparent.

[bkidd]

Does he ever have any of those traditional instruments in his classes and demo them, so that people can hear what the music sounds like when played on them?

No, I haven't seen him break out any other instruments.

And no, I've not had the opportunity to take any classes with him. I'd like to, but that would involve travel to the other end of the country and it's a bit out of my price range at the present time.

Understandable. You should definitely try to take a workshop with him when he visits your side of the country.

but i do see people talking as if MK plays everything traditionally, and it's not so. (Given the criteria I just mentioned.) There is - imo - absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I think it's helpful to be specific about these things. Trad. Malinke rhythms from where he grew up? sure. But are ballet arrangements strictly trad.? No, they're not - they are both an adaptation of and an expansion of tradition. They're "in the style of" what's played back home, but they are not exactly what actually is played back home, no? (Village fetes being a whole different kettle of fish to stage productions - for one thing, there are arrangements being used; the dance is choreographed and so on.)

Nice distinction. Reading your post makes me think that using the word traditional music is itself a bit misleading and it might be better to say this is how music is traditionally played in my village. This may be a bit of an overkill, but it would be more precise.

From what I've seen on footage and heard from people who have travelled to villages throughout Guinea, there is quite a bit of variation in the ensemble from one village to the next. The number of instruments vary (often there isn't a set of kenkeni, sangban, and dununba, but one or two of these drums), whether bells are played on the dununs or not, whether non-djembe/dunun instruments are played or not, etc. Guinea is a big place that is rich in musical history and where regional variation abounds. One of the problems we are tackling is the issues that come up in trying to make generalizations about this variety with incomplete information at best. The approach that I like, and incidentally this is the one that MK himself uses, is to say "I learned this rhythm/song/dance from so and so, it's played with such and such instruments, and this is when or why it's played."

Cheers,
-Brian