This video is from the 2013 African Music festival on the Island of Montserrat in the Carribean. They were so well liked that they returned again the following year per the crowd’s request. The main instrument of the ensemble is the Djembe. This drum was initially discovered in west Africa, with the main purpose of providing communications between tribes. Today the Djembe is used more in the sense of making music rather than its origin of storytelling. The Djembe makes three distinct sounds; bass, tone, and slap, which the music is composed off of. The three tones are produced by the position of the hand while playing. The first step to playing is knowing the positioning of the instrument. The most effective way to play the Djembe is to be sitting up in a chair and holding the drum between your legs. The hands should be parallel to the ground with thumbs pointing upwards. To create a bass sound, the player has to hit the drum in the middle of the head. This can take variation in sound regarding to letting your hand bounce off the head and allowing the drum to resonate. To produce a tone sound, the pitch is determined by the position of the hand. Here, the hand is positioned on the edge of the drum with knuckles placed on the edge. Then the drum can be hit with all the fingering being flat, all at the same time. The slapping sound is similar to the tone sound but is brighter in timbre. To correctly produce the slapping sound, you have to try to minimize the time your hand is in contact with the drum. Instead of forcing a hit on the drum, you would instead let your hand bounce off.
Jalikunda African Drums
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