Introduction to Djembe

Introduction

If you are completely new to West African drumming then a few things need to be explained in order for you to understand both the course material presented here, and West African Mandé drumming in general…

When I talk about ‘West African drumming’ it is, in fact, slightly misleading because within West Africa there are many different drumming traditions. Even within each country there are several different ethnic groups and each group has their own style of drumming, their own types of drum and so on. Thus in Senegal there is Sabar, in Nigeria there is Yoruba and in Ghana there Kpanlogo. Each of these is as different from the kind of drumming that I have learned as Irish folk music is from Gypsy Jazz! To be clear then, the style of drumming presented here is from ‘Mandé’ areas of West Africa. The medieval Mandinka empire spanned parts of several modern countries including Guinea Conakry, Mali, Burkina Faso and The Ivory Coast. Thus this style of drumming is, originally at least, Mandinka drumming, and each country that has a Mandé ethnic group has a similar drumming tradition. Such groups include the Maninka of Guinea, the Bambara of Mali and the Mandé of Burkina Faso.

Mandé drumming revolves round a goblet-shaped hand drum called the djembe, and up to three bass drums that are played with sticks and, in some areas, with metal beaters and bells. The exact combination differs from region to region. In the South of Guinea Conakry, for example, it is traditional to have just two djembes with no dunduns. Instead the djembes are accompanied by several women on shekeré (a gourd covered with a net of shells that acts as a kind of shaker). In some regions of Northern Guinea and Mali the music is played with a single mid-sized dundun with no bell (instead the free hand grips and releases the skin to create closed and open sounds), in other areas they play without kenkeni. Despite these regional variations though, the ‘standard’ arrangement has come to mean Dundun Bah, Sangbang and Kenkeni in the bass sections, with two djembes playing accompaniment and one djembe playing solo. The prevalence of this system is such that some areas that traditionally did not use all three bass drums have now adopted this arrangement!

There is some confusion over the terms dundun, dunun, dundun ba etc so let’s clear that up here: The collective term for the bass drums is ‘dunduns’ or ‘dununs’, depending on regional pronunciation (as far as I am aware the pronunciation ‘djundjun’ is a western invention and does not exist in West Africa). Nevertheless each dundun has its own name. The lowest bass drum is called the dundun (or dunun) ba. In Maninka the word ‘ba’ means ‘big’, so ‘dunun ba’ simply means ‘big dunun’. However, people often omit the word ‘ba’ and just say dundun or dunun to refer to the lowest bass drum. The next up in pitch is called the sangbang and the highest is called the kenkeni (regional differences exist for the names of these drums and the ones I give are the Maninka names, from Guinea Conakry)

A ‘rhythm’, in West Africa, means a combination of dundun ba, sangbang and kenkeni, plus one or more djembe accompaniments. In villages each rhythm is traditionally played for a particular social function. Thus ‘Kassa’ is played after the harvest and ‘Soli’ was traditionally part of the male circumcision rites of passage. Thus technically the name refers to the occasion, rather than to the rhythm per sé.

Traditionally each dundun is played on its side. One hand plays the skin with a stick while the other hand plays a metal bell, mounted on the drum, with a metal beater. The combination of accompaniments on the dunduns is what defines each rhythm. Whereas the same djembe accompaniments are used on hundreds of different rhythms, the exact combination of dunduns is unique for each rhythm and gives it its characteristic ‘signature’. However, all three dundun accompaniments do not have to be unique. Certain kenkeni patterns, for example, turn up in many different rhythms, and certain dunun ba parts are also not unique. Usually, however, the sangbang is unique to each rhythm…it holds the ‘melody’ and tells us what rhythm is being played. It is important to note that this is not an absolute rule…but it is true most of the time…
Each dundun has its own part but there is some room for variation. While the kenkeni almost never varies the dundun and the sangbang can vary to a certain extent. The sangbang plays some variations, often in conjunction with the dundun. It is the dundun, however, that is the most free. A good dundun player improvises around the basic pattern and supports and talks to the solo djembe. Certain conventions exist, such as echauffement patterns, but after the solo djembe the dundun is most free to improvise.

Although traditionally each dundun is played by a different person, it is possible to fix three together and play them vertically with two sticks. In this way one person can play an approximation of all three patterns. This is often called ‘ballet-style’ because this system was adopted by ‘Les Ballets Africain de Guinea’, the national drumming troupe of Guinea Conakry. I generally use ‘ballet-style’ dunduns in my videos as accompaniment because they provide the fullest sound that a single bass player can achieve. However, on my video of Mendiani solo I choose to be accompanied by a sangbang for the exact reason described here: The sangbang in Mendiani provides the melody…it is the key to Mendiani so the solo makes most sense when played against the sangbang. To score ballet dunduns I use 3 lines, the lowest for the dundun, the middle one for the sangbang and the top one for the kenkeni. I add a further line below these three to show the handing, assuming you have the sangbang on the left and the kenkeni on the right. Throughout this course I use the terms ‘right hand’ and ‘left hand’ rather than ‘dominant hand’ and non-dominant hand’. I do this for ease of use. If you are left handed simply reverse the handing. Here is a ballet-dundun score of ‘Lolo’, the first rhythm in this course, followed by an audio file of the same rhythm:

If you want to read the rest of this article and have access to a database of lessons that include video, play-along audio files, score and blog-style write-ups then visit www.djembeweaver.com