Moussé Dramé

[Michel]

Hi you all,

Since about 8 years I study djembe with my teacher, Moussé Dramé. He is a great, creative djembefola, and he teaches us the rhythms he learned from his father, uncles and aunts, who are/were jeli's from Kita, Mali. Before he came to Amsterdam to marry his (dutch) wife who is a great African dancer, he played in several ballets in Senegal and around the world, and has a great deal of experience with playing on traditional ceremonies. So far nothing new, lots of us have teachers (I hope for you!) who can tell the same stories/have the same backgrounds. Countries can change, but the rest is very much common.
But now for something else: On this video he performes a version of Dansa, what he taught to another of his groups. For me it sounds like a great piece of djembe, with skills, melody, etc. To my group he also taught a Dansa, which is totally different (but with the same swing) as the one he plays here, but when I go to Mali to learn Dansa, teachers there all teach me a very recognizable Dansa, the version everybody knows as Dansa.
And when I play that one for Moussé he immediately recognizes it as Dansa. I wonder what happens here. The man knows about 8 different accompaniements to Dansa, maybe more. When I tell him that in Mali everybody plays just one (ta-tadadidida-tadadidi) he is kind of disappointed, and together we came to the question: where do these other versions of Dansa come from? Are they just inventions of Malian jeli's and djembefola coming to Senegal? Another answer could be this: he is from Soninke-background, maybe were these pieces originally played on tamani's, and translated to djembe? We are both curious. For him there are not much people left to ask it for, the generation before him almost passed away. Maybe amongst you there are people who can think for answers.
By the way this doesn't only happen with Dansa. Also Marakadon, Sunu, Garankedon, all of the rhythms he teaches us are with lots of kinda complicated accompaniements, very nice to play but nobody else knows them!

enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrK4k2R6laA

Michiel