More slapping!

[Loveablesurfer]

I've been working on my slapping lately, and its really coming along. I have noticed though that I get a better slap when I slap towards the centre of the drum with my whole hand than on the edge of the drum where its typically slapped. I find when I slap in the centre of the drum, its a bit deeper, clearer and there isn't an overtone ringing afterwards.

I've heard people quote some of the djembe Masters with regards to focusing on sound more so than technique. Is this focusing on sound too much and technique not enough?

Any ideas/comments/criticisms???

[rachelnguyen]

Hey Loveable,

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, LOL.

But my only comment is that whatever technique you use, it is important that you can play fast... so it should be one that you can still pull off at high speed.

For me, my slaps and tones improved considerably when I stopped overthinking it and just started to listen to and imitate my teacher.

R

[Paul]

Hi,

My first teacher learned from a nigerian guy and taught us that big slap, far in and to the side.

When I went to play guinea style realised all that moving around the drum was a waste of energy, I try to make the slightest hand intonation between toneand slap and play them in the same place on the drum.

It can be nice to have a cupped slap if your jamming with a guitar acoustic, but for the ballet stuff no way..

Mind you we had drummers from ghana over last year, one of them picked up this piece of crap tourist djembe from nigeria and made it sing. He hit every piece of that drum..

[sakuntu]

I've played congas for over 15 years and studied kpanlogo, oge and fume fume when i was in ghana for 5 months. I been just starting to get into djembe this past year. I went to my first djembe workshop 2 weeks ago with senagalease drummer Alasanne Sarr. I got there early, took out the djembe and hit a few tones and slaps to warm up. He looked at me and the first thing he said was..."you play congas?" He could tell because my slap was farther in than my tone, like a conga players. He instructed me to slap in the same position as the tone when I play Djembe. said I don't need to move my hand so much. I feel like i'm in sixth grade band again ...working on this "new" slap. Its coming along...

[e2c]

You'll get it, sankutu! But I hear you on switching from one technique to another. For me, this can be harder mentally than physically - like rachel (see her post above), i tend to overthink things.

[Paul]

Just starting to play congas, So back to drum kindergarten for me too

[Dugafola]

I've played congas for over 15 years and studied kpanlogo, oge and fume fume when i was in ghana for 5 months. I been just starting to get into djembe this past year. I went to my first djembe workshop 2 weeks ago with senagalease drummer Alasanne Sarr. I got there early, took out the djembe and hit a few tones and slaps to warm up. He looked at me and the first thing he said was..."you play congas?" He could tell because my slap was farther in than my tone, like a conga players. He instructed me to slap in the same position as the tone when I play Djembe. said I don't need to move my hand so much. I feel like i'm in sixth grade band again ...working on this "new" slap. Its coming along...

that's the goal...to keep your hands in basically the same place to produce your tones and slaps.

then you can do this:

[rachelnguyen]

LOL,

I hope I can sound like that someday! Thanks for posting it.