Do you speak djembe?

[djembeweaver]

I do a fair bit of this corporate stuff from time to time. Like Paul says, it pays the bills.

I used to be quite cynical about it but at the end of the day it always boils down to a group of people in a room. They're not the evil machinations of a corporate machine. They're just people. When we get it right we help them experience a bit of magic (not in a hippy way, just insofar as they've never played music as a group before) and that's a good thing I think.

We did one last week where we did a 30 min session with the group (about 300!) supported by two ballet duns and accomp djembe then our whole band (african soloist 'Samsou' included) came on from the back of the room and we did a short full-on performance of traditional (whatever that means) stuff.

I agree that with Paul that you can't really judge an event on a short montage like this. Cheesy though it might be, the event might have been awesome for all I know.

[the kid]

but at the end of the day it always boils down to

I thought you were gonna say 'money' at this point

I get corporate workshops etc and why people do it. And i see there uses etc but what has a european orchestra got to do with djembe or west african music. Thats pretty much what i don't get about this production. To me their using djembe to sell there product.

[Waraba]

I thought it blended pretty well, and in spite of being very skeptical of this sort of thing. It has my vote. I can't see harm being done either, and I liked the powerful blast of bass from the audience.