Balafon

[bubudi]

another book, "balafon beat" by gert kilian, has some great exercises and also has some scores for traditional songs, but not as much as in lynn jessup's book. the book is in french, german and english and can be found here.

here's an extract:



mamadou diabate's website also has a page full of scores for jula, sambla and tusia balo. they are for intermediate to advanced players. there is nothing there for mandinka bala.

[bubudi]

the revised edition of the mandinka balafon by lynn jessup is now available for purchase, $45. it comes with 2 cds and is available from dandemutande and percussionmusic.

[Paul]

Hi found a vid of some guy teaching pentatonic bala in Bobo Dioulasso.
http://www.baragnouma.com

Dont know why my computer wont insert it as a link (ie why im so stupid). My god you will have to do it old style.

[Paul]

Wow the website did it for me. That is freaky, is that normal. Is Djembefola controlling our minds.. Argggggghhhh

[bops]

It created a link, but it's broken. Are these the videos?

[bops]

Those are great lessons, BTW. Nice find Paul!

[Paul]

Thats the one. Give me something to work on for awhile.

The company is owned by a french guy who lives there. All the bala are in concert pitch which is useful, if not traditiona,l but if you already have one he will make a match in that key.

The second guy playing is blind, so he makes a couple of errors when slowed down. he dont make none in a concert though no matter how much chopalo hes had.

[Marc_M]

Wow. Excellent videos. I like how the video breaks the parts down into left and right hand patterns as well as together.

Nice find.

Thanks for posting.

[bubudi]

soli bala parts

[bubudi]

piece called yaboule

[tekrtu]

Watching baragnouma´s Orodara sidiki-clip was turning moment in my life, because after seeing it, I was very sure I want to get own bala. As I have ordered few djembes directly from Baragnouma, I bought baragnouma´s pentatonic 12-key bala and started to practise Orodara sidiki as it is possible with my bala. I have been practising it for 3 months by now and day after day I progress. I have managed to understand both accompaniment parts (lent/rapide) with variatiations and soloparts for lent and rarpide as well.

At first everything felt so difficult, but at this moment only challenging and everytime I am playing, it is so nice to notice, I am actually progressing step by step an. The more I play the better I understand co-ordination of hands and respecting rhythm. No matter how hard learning new things feels at first, but it is possible to learn and challengies and crossing them engourages me continuing practises.

I also ordered Die Stimme des Balafon/ La voix du balafon von Adrian Egger from ebay. I find it very good tutorial for a student, who don´t have chance to take lessons of skilled musician. There is some basic practises of ternary and binary rhythms and if I remember right 10 traditional songs (accompaniment parts) with sound exambles in cd + lots of information. Unfortunately my french and german are at this moment very bad. I wish there would be some solos as well, but as I am patient student, there is no need to be rushing for solos before I handle all available accompaniments fluently. Otherwise I can play some songs someway, but not any of them very well.

By the way, I don´t know how u find it, but I think playing bala is very supportive for playing djembe as well. Sometimes I start my drumming session with bala and after some hours I take my djembe and wow, my hands moves very nicely and I feel " I´m home again". However, I have to admid, nowdays bala competes with djembe very effectively.

If anyone wants very good bala, I dare to recommendate baragnouma´s balas and by the way djembes as well. Last spring I ordered one baragnouma´s solodjembe for my senegalese friend who didn´t have good djembe for solos. After receiving new, high quality djembe, he has been in seventh heaven.

[the kid]

I reckon this is from Burkino but i'm not sure. And i don't know the artists names but hopefully someone will enlighten us. Any ways there's some great Balafon playing here. Check guy on left playing rhythm and solo through out with either hand..

[tekrtu]

I found this videoclip during one sleepless night last week and I started immediately to learn these accompaniments for Yiriba. I like this version a lot. It is very different than version for examble in a book "La Voix du balafon". I have found that watching, listening time after time and imitating as a learning method is for me much more encouraging way to learn bala than reading notationbooks and listening soundclips. Of course notations help a lot and you can return reading notations when ever you want and figure out with them how hands work together. However, as I have learnt Sin té Kono fé with a help of baragnouma´s videolesson, I have noticed that once I have understood and learnt how to play accompaniment with variation and solophares, all that information is in my head and it will stay there. I guess this is because most of times I just don´t understand notations at all, only if they are very very simple and suitable for my simple mind.

Of course teacher would be the best alternative for learning, but unfortunately at this moment it´s not possible to have any.

[Nodrog]

I like the part where he grins at the camera because it's sooo easy then straight after he misses a note so now he looks at the camera again but more sheepishly.

Good stuff though.

Gordon.

[Onetreedrums]

This isn't much of a lesson, but could certainly inspire some bala playing. This is my good friend and former roommate, Facinet Bangoura, playing a peice in our backyard. He currently lives in Denver, CO, and would gladly take on any students in the area. Enjoy!