12/8 Mali rhythm family short:medium:long

[djembefeeling]

Manjanin song:

manjani daba
manjani daba
manjani daba keita
manjani daba bara bo

den tala daba
den tala daba
den tala daba keita
den tala daba bara bo

ah daba keita
ah daba bara bo


The song here is probably sung by Oumou Mariko and Drissa Koné with some people attending a workshop:

[djembefeeling]

I just listened over and over to the song Mady sings on Manjanin. Unfortunately, I don't know Bamana, so I am at a loss to the correct spelling and meaning of the words. But he seems to sing (min. 0:54-1:14) something like this (sorry guys for my german pronounciation here. "lee" does not sound like you guys usually do, but more like "leh", the first letter of the first word is something in between M and a soft B, I guess):

Mben a lee la nifa, mo ni fi la kalima dinu oeee-iyeh la dia e na(w)o, malien o mben a lee.

He sings along the konkonin like this:

[kosta]

Mben a lee la nifa, mo ni fi la kalima dinu oeee-iyeh la dia e na(w)o, malien o mben a lee.

Another excellent effort Jurgen

I wish I knew Bamana too and translate it. I ll ask Mady when I see him and he can enlighten us!

As far as Drissa's song concerns I dont think I ve heard it before but it sounds really nice and very straight forward!

Cheers
Kosta

[djembefeeling]

I finished a breakdown on the style of 5 distinct djembefolas playing Garanké: Drissa Koné, Sega Sidibé, Sidiki Camara, Sega Cissé, and Jaraba Jakité.

Garanké is a rhythm very poor on standard patterns -- there are only two of them. the first is
.1..2..3..4..1..2..3..4..
sb.s..s..s..sb.sttstts..s

and the second is
.1..2..3..4..1..2..3..4..
bsss..ttss..bsssoosoos..b

there are, of course, many variations and variants depending on the artist.

My interest in this research has been how these guys deal with the relative "destitution" of material, what are their strategies to form something interesting and beautiful out of this material.

Drissa Koné likes to add material by playing lots of excursions with "exit"-patterns, which are usually played to end a time of playing one signature pattern or after an echauffement.
Sega Sidibés strategy is very similar to Drissas. He also likes to play long excursions with the different structures you can use in the family - he simply binds those together. Also, he likes to play rolls in a dense structure over a comparatively long period of time. Additionally, he plays a signature pattern which is usually only used for the jina rhythm.

Sidiki Camara is much influenced by Sega Sidibé, it seems. His signature patterns are much alike Segas. But he sticks more to the basis, developes the signature patterns in different variations over two measures and also with roll, though less excessively than Sega. When he plays an excursion, he usually goes along the strucutre much like Mady Keitas excursion 0 for Manjanin.

Sega Cissé prefers to create a dense structure of beats. His standard patterns are very dense, and he has a very elegant and beautiful way of changing from one pattern into the next. The only structure for his excursions is the bell line of that family.

Last, but not least, there is Jaraba Jakité. He is the "purist" among those soloists. He plays nothing but the standard patterns with slight variations and echauffements. Its in the echauffements where he puts his creativety, plays lots of different ones. But his main instrument for creating thrill is time. His play has the most suspense, and he has the largest range of speed within his play. He starts out slow, and in the end its just frantic, though so much on the point.

It would be interesting to compare the recordings of some artist of the, say, last 20 years. I am curious about if and how teaching students from around the world for a long time changes the style of an artist. it is interesting to note, for example, how Sega Sidibé and Drissa Koné, the two most popular teachers from Mali, are also those who add the most material to the rhythm.

cheers, jürgen

[djembefeeling]

For a workshop I will give in November, I am currently working on Wolosso. I have recordings of variours artist, but about 80% of my recordings are with Drissa Koné, reaching from the earliest recording of Gerhard Kero in 1991 (CD Kurabamako) to recordings from the Djembe Hotel in Bamako in 2011 -- so I have exactly what I was looking for more than a year ago and can examine
"how teaching students from around the world for a long time changes the style of an artist."

My source are a total of 12 recordings with Drissa. It's not always safe to tell exactly how much teaching influenced Drissa's style on this rather thin basis. For one, he seems to vary his style according to who is recording and if he is performing for a serious recording or for a back-up of teaching. You can clearly tell how advanced the students have been from the recordings. The most advanced get the best stuff. So, the recordings for Gerhard Kero and Rainer Polak (see http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.10.16.4/polak_examples.php?id=32) are the most interesting. Then, in a time span of 20 years, you can expect a drummer to change patterns in a rhythm, I guess. Drissa has favorite patterns for a rhythmic family that change with time like fashion.

Apart from this, i still think a strong influence of Drissas extensive teaching practice for international students is traceable in his style over the years. In gereral, he is playing more basic patterns today than in the 90's. and those patterns are more standardized, so it's easier to learn and teach them. In 1991, Drissa played during the biggest chunk of the recording just basic pattern 1:
os.|os.|..O|oos|s..|..S|sss|ss.| (big letters are two double time notes, o=tone, s=slap)
But he hardly plays this pattern the same way once. He has a ton of variations for it.
Today, he tends to play it in a very standardized way of cycles of 3:
2x os.|os.|..O|oos|s..|...|...|...|,
1x os.|os.|..O|oos|s..|..S|sss|ss.|
The same is true for some of the most of the other basic patterns, and not only in Wolosso.

In 1991, he added a lot of times another pattern after basic pattern one and other occasions a pattern that I call (in imitation of Rainer Polak) a "joker", since this pattern is used like a basic pattern, an interface between basic patterns and an exit pattern by Drissa:
bs.|s.s|.s.|bs.|b$.|..S|sss|ss.| ($=muffled slap)
In 1999, on the recording that comes with Stephan Rigert's book on Mali rhythms, it developed into a sort of exit pattern: bs.|s.s|.s.|bs.|sss|..o|ooo|ss.| and is not connected to basic pattern 1 anymore. At least since 2005, it developed into basic pattern 3 that he also likes to play on Manjanin: bs.|s.s|..o|.o.|sss|..s|bss|bs.|
He even plays an overlaying extension of basic pattern 2 (=|...|oos|oos|ss.|...|..b|bbs|ss.|) as a seperated solo pattern (|...|..b|bbs|ssb|bbs|oob|bbs|ssb|bbs|oob|bbs|ssb|bbs|oos|oos|ssb|...)

Drissa also developed a standby pattern: Oos|ss.|Oos|ss.| into a basic pattern (4): Oos|ss.|Oos|ss.|b$.|...|...|...| and the has a new pattern based on the three slaps in the second measure of basic pattern 3: b|sss|..b||sss|..b||sss|...|..b| (bp5). I do see him playing those also for a dance class, so it may have been he developed those basic patterns for the need of accompanying the steps of a dance teacher.

But my best guess is that Drissa does this out of a necessity in teaching: his students are mostly not capable of grasping complex sequences of patterns, different variations, exit patterns, standby patterns, echauffements, interfaces and the like. Most of us are used to a method of teaching like this is solo 1-5, and you play them exactly like this and in this order.

It is interesting that Drissa plays a basic pattern mostly imitating the konkonin that he does not teach. He plays this pattern only for the recordings of Gerhard Kero and Rainer Polak:
bo|o.o|o.o|..§|.bo|o.o|..§|..§|.bo| (§=slap flam) The fact that he knows of another very teachable solopattern for woloso that he doesn't teach does contradict my thoery in part.

But not only the soloing changes much over time, the konkonin pattern does also. while the konkonin hardly ever changes in 1991 (o|o..|o..|ö..|ö..|o.o|..ö|..ö|..o|; ö= muffled stroke), it has lots of variations in 1999. this may be due to Stephan Rigert's demand to arrange the rhythms for an international market that is used to 3 duns. But some of the variations and the chauff pattern (o|o.o|..o|o.o|) can be found in every recording since 1999 (the intro is on most recordings since 1999). This may be an adjustment to the taste of international students but could also be due to the adaption of the khassonka dundun into drumming ensembles in Bamako and it's influence on the style of konkonin playing in ensembles without a khassonka dundun.

Only in the recordings of 2005, Drissa teaches a transition into what he calls Wolossodon Brokaf'n (ö..|ö..|o.o|.o.|o.o|..ö|..ö|..ö|). That I like very much. Those recordings are both very teachable and musically satisfying.
I don't know what "Brokaf'n means, though, and would appreciate to learn about this in case some of you guys knows...

Overall, I would say that the new recordings differ from the older ones in a richer basis of standard pattern, but those patterns are much more standardized and lack the richness of exploration in ever changing variations.

best, jürgen

[Dugafola]

thanks jurg...you put me in a mali type of mood today. jaraba all day!!