Transcript

Hello, everyone. My name is Michael Markus. I’m the president and co-founder of Wula Drum. I started off as a percussionist. I grew up playing drum set. My teacher was half Cuban, and he inspired me to play congas. From the conga, I came to the djembe from West Africa.

And when I moved to New York, I met the most amazing musicians from West Africa who inspired me to learn the traditional folkloric music from West Africa. I fell in love with the djembe, so everything I did started to become about the djembe. And we formed our organization called Wula Drum.

Wula is a Susu word which means ‘deep in the forest where the good wood is’, and it inspires us to make beautiful, high quality percussion instruments. But we also believe in having programming where we can teach the people how to play the drums. So here in New York we have an entourage of the best drum and dance teachers. We work with all ages. We provide educational materials.

And in Guinea, West Africa, we make drums with our team of master carvers, and we try to create the best scenario for them to give them sustainable income and enable these wonderful instruments to give people inspiration to learn the music.

If you’d like to find out more about what we do, please visit us online at wuladrum.com. You can see our events. You can see our beautiful drums. And, hopefully, you’ll participate in making some more music together.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video series. As a non-African person, I’ve fallen in love with this music, and I hope you fall in love with this music. And I just want to say that music is for everyone, and if you practice and practice you can learn anything you want to learn.

Transcript

I want to share beginning technique for the Baliphone. Thank you. I’ll do that again. That’s one octave. This is technique but softly, it’s not hard. You go softly. See how I hold this tape. You see, I’m not like this because like this with your finger ahead how to be work hit the notes like this? See? That’s the beginning technique of how to play the Baliphone. So when you play Baliphone, you want to play Baliphone, it’s not going to be here. Hopefully the Baliphone, when you hit Baliphone here in the middle, you’re going to have good sound here. See? Perfect. You can hear you lose the sound and then here, you see, the string is here so the note is come from here. Here. That’s why when the Baliphone is played they like to put the microphone here in the front because the sound come here. But for that you’re not going to have sound. You see? In the middle of the wood, you have a good sound. And here you lose the sound. In the middle you’ve got a good sound. Now, if you want to make music with that, that octave C-major octave. Thank you.

Transcript

I want to talk to you about balafon. The balafon is made by wood, it’s not metal, called khadi, that the Susu people call khadi, and Malinke people call beng.

So we made this with wood, and on the bottom we have the gourds, like calabash. It’s a fruit, it comes from the fruit family, pumpkin family. These calabash make the balafon loud, like amplification.

Since we get this instrument was not technology like electricity in Africa at that time, we used those to make sound vibration louder, like, you know, amplification.

And you have bamboo frame. This is a bamboo frame. We make those together to make balafon. But it’s really name called bala, B-A-L-A.

So now to stake this rubber tree, we make stake, to play balafon for that. So, I’m going to show you a little demonstration.

That’s overview to play balafon.

Transcript

This is how to play the log drum, sometimes also called the krin.

You want to hold the stick very comfortably, and you don’t want to use too thick of a stick because that will make the sound kind of muffled. Everyone’s technique is a little bit different. I hold my stick kind of like this.

Speaker 2: I hold mine like this because my technique is different like Michael [?] technique, so my technique is more different.

Speaker 3: I’m learning so, I’m finding my way. It’s okay.

Speaker 1: When you play the log drug, you want to make sure you use about an inch or so into the stick. You’re going to hit on an angle on the first or second slat. Not the tip of the stick, that doesn’t sound strong. We want to play with the shoulder of the stick, like this.

Speaker 2: So mine, I just hit it but I know how to make the sound because it [inaudible]… and the sound is a little different so I can hit it like this. It’s very easy and comfortable.

Speaker 3: I’m studying, so I’m going to keep on looking for my best technique.

Speaker 1: See? The log drum has many sounds. Hasan played like three or four different sounds because each slap has a different pitch. Also, you can play on the edge with the tip of the stick.

Speaker 2: The way I can get my technique, because mine have two different sounds, so I’m going to put the two together to make a different sound. You see?

Speaker 1: And as Bemba showed, you can play quietly, or you can play loudly. Fast. Or slow. This music is meant to be played outside, so it carries far, because it’s wood on wood. This is how you play the log drum.

Transcript

Man 1: This is an overview of the Log Drum or sometimes called the Krin. This instrument is played with three people, each person has their own. And this comes from the forest region of Guinea West Africa where Bamba’s from.

Bemba: Yeah man.

Man 1: It’s made out of white wood that’s called the Malina wood. And they’re hollowed out by hand and each slat is tuned to a different note. So mines sounds different than Bemba’s, sounds different than Hasan’s. See this one?

Hey. I’ll get it. I’ll keep practicing. And each one has a different tone and they fit together to make the melody, just like any drums. Congas or Djembes or Dununs there’s a set of three and the music is made like that usually they have one soloist which is obviously is Bemba. You can hear these were made to played outside, as they carry a far, far distance.

And this is the overview of the Log drum.

Transcript

Speaker 1: These are castanets, Guinea style. What they are basically are just some basket shakers. They’re made from a piece of calabash on the bottom, nylon cord, braided nylon cord, and they have rocks in the inside that help give it its shaker sound. They each have different tones. The colors that you see here represent the colors of Guinea – red, yellow, and green.

Another thing to note, they come in different sizes and different pitches. They’re wonderful to play. That’s such a loud instrument, but it’s really wonderful in ensemble playing. Okay? Alright. This is castanets Guinea style. Let’s play a little bit of Ba Ba Bemba.

You can hold them by putting your hands in the handles and moving them up and down, like so. That will give you a rhythm. Bemba, what do you think?

Bemba: The castanets, everybody has a different technique of how to play castanets. Some people hold them here, some people hold them in the middle, like this. So is different techniques. So the castanets they play with a different location. They play with a different instrument, the djembe, they play with the singer together. This is an instrument that comes from the forest people.

Speaker 1: And this is how you play the castanets, Guinea style.

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to play the Shekere.

Shekere is a wonderful instrument that comes from Southwest Africa in the area like Sierra Leone, Nigeria, where long time ago, the first drums, believe it or not, were gourds. Gourds being pounded at births, ceremonies and just working in the field using to accompany songs. How you play the Shekere is very simple. And again, you must try to be really relaxed.

You are going to use the palm of your hand to strike the bottom of this
instrument while holding it at the top. So it’s almost like holding a baby. Okay? So you rest it down on your palm. You have a drum sounding note, but also you did hit the beads. So you move the Shekere around like so, and you start getting a little music and it makes me feel really good to do that. Listen to it. You can also add a roll in your playing, which is just this skirt of colorful beads hitting the outside of this gourd.

And you know gourds come from the pumpkin family and when they’re dried after harvest, they become really hollow on the inside. So as you see, the bottom is just like the playing surface of a hand drum. Okay.

And that’s how you play the Shekere.

Transcript

These wonderful instruments are known collectively as Claves, and what they are are two pieces of very resonant hardwood that is used to give timing and color and placement of the music. These are actually made from some kind of rosewood that come from Cuba.

How you play the Claves and how you hold the Claves is of the greatest importance. You have to make, like, what is called a resonant chamber to hold the receiving stick, the one that sits in your hand. If you can see from the other side the Claves sits here and there’s a little room in my hand that helps to project the sound.

Here is the note with the chamber and here is note with no chamber.

Now, this set of Claves has an open hole on both ends. Wow! Both ends, which will give you a louder sound. So listen to it played in a proper fashion. Now, if I mute or close one of the holes and hold it towards my body, you notice it has less and less sound, but played in its proper form it is played out like this.

Okay, I want to show you another set of Claves that are about 60 or 70 years old that was given to me by an old friend. Same principle. You make a resonant chamber with your hand and you hold it where you don’t hit your fingers. Make sure you don’t hit your fingers, guys. So and as you see the instruments are a lot lighter in sound. I actually like these better. Yeah!

I know this instrument, it looks real easy and it is, but the placement of where you put it in music is very important.

And this is how you play the Claves.

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to play the kalimba. It is a piece of wood that is mounted on a gourd, like on the top of the bottom of a guitar, to help produce and project the sound.

The kalimba, as I turn it around for you, just like with the mbira, is played by a scratching fashion at the end of each one of these metal pieces, which is known as a tong or a key or a note. OK?

Turning it back to me, I’m going to play in that fashion and you will hear beautiful sounds.

I can play three notes at one time if I use both of my thumbs and my pointer finger, and it gives you a chordal sound. OK? Here’s how I play.

Isn’t that soothing? That is the sound of my kalimba.

Now I’m going to play for you mbira. What makes the mbira different than the kalimba is simply that the mbira actually sits inside its sound box. If you were in Zimbabwe, you would say daze, which just means resonator. OK?

You play the instrument in that same scratching fashion. With this daze or calabash or sound box, it has a number of bottle caps that help to project naturally the sound of the instrument as you would in an electronic amplifier. OK?

So another important note is that my kalimba and this mbira, they have a different note sequence, a different set of notes. So I can play a different song. I can’t really play the same song as a kalimba, so I’ll show you.

OK, I just played some wonderful sounds on the mbira. I want to tell you some additional things. It’s with the mbira: if you look very closely, you will see what is called a prop stick. It helps to transfer the resonance from the mbira into the sound box or the daze, so if your prop stick is too loose, it won’t give that transference of sound. If it’s too tight, it also won’t give you the same transference of sound. It’ll be muted. You want to find just the right placement of having your mbira sitting in sound, its sound box.

So those are some tips on how to play the mbira and the kalimba.

Transcript

This is how to play the sandba part. People have a very different way how to hold the bell. Some people put the bell on the left side. Some people put the on the right side. My technique, my bell is in my left. Also, the way I hold the stick, I hold the stick my right side. This is how I make my technique to play the rikken kuku. The first thing I do is go together with the bell and the stick together. This is how come in.

Now I’m going to start very slowly. The first thing now how to hold the stick and how the stick going to go with the technique. So my technique is like this.

The technique of the bell, my technique of the bell go like this one.

It’s two different techniques. Some of the technique you see me with the bell together with the stick with the music.

I’m going to put all together.

That’s how to play the sandba pah with Rikken Kuku.

Transcript

This is how to play the DunDun part for the rhythm Kuku from Guinea West Africa. The DunDun accents and it plays off the beat and inside Kuku you have many variation but we’re gonna keep it very, very basic today just so you can get hold of the rhythm and be able to repeat it.

The bell starts on 1, hitting the DunDun plays after 1. So if I say 5, 6, 7, 8… I start on the bell, ka, ka and then I hit the drum with the bell. I say 5, 6, 7, 8… And it’s really not a lot of notes on the DunDun at first, the basic pattern rides with the bell 5, 6, 7, 8, 1… 1… 1. – A little faster 5, 6, 7, 8, 1. – Hear how is feels a little syncopated? Let’s try it a little faster. 5, 6, 7, 8, 1… 1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4, 1.

Traditional Kuku he DunDun player will look at the dancer and actually improvise a little bit. So I;m gonna play a couple very simple variation, but if you get confused you just stick with the basic pattern. 5, 6, 7, 8, 1… Now… Again, nod every time.

And can even get even more creative. 1, 2, 3, 4. – And you just have fun, relax, and this is how you play the DunDun part for Kuku.

Transcript

We’re going to show you how to play the dundun, the sangba, and the kankanee [SP]. Each person has one stick and a piece of metal to play the bell. I like to use this, but some people use the straight piece of iron. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re using iron on iron. The way I hold it is like this.

So the bell can ring. How does yours sound?

So each bell is a little different. When I hold my stick just like a drumstick, I’m relaxed. Everyone holds a stick differently.

Yeah. I’ll hold my stick like this, because everybody has to hold the stick a different way. Everybody’s got a different technique.

We all play in the middle of the drum, and we come off the drum. Don’t press the stick against the skin. We play open like this.

The pitches are low, medium, high. So when I play. . .

I play with the bell.

We stay relaxed. We move the stick off the drum, and that’s how the pitches and the dundun, sangba, kankanee drums are played together.

This is how to play the dundun, sangba, and kankanee.

Transcript

Man 1: This is an overview of the Dundun. The Dundun family, there’s three drums. They come from Guinea, West Africa, and they’re made of white wood, which is called Melina wood, cow skin, rope. Sometimes you can have rings to hold the skin, and sometimes they just sew it on. And then we have a bell. And each person has one stick and one bell.

Man 2: So the big one that’s what we call a Dundun. The middle one I have we call a Sangban. Then next to me that’s Kenkeni. So this instrument we play for a celebration for happy, for the hunter, for the wedding. We play many different locations to play with this instrument. So it comes from a Malinke ethnic group. So this is how we would play.

Man 1: That’s an overview for the Dundun, Sangban and Kenkeni

Transcript

Host: I am going to show you how to tune a conga. If you look closely here, you will see these hooks. These hooks help to add tension or release tension on this animal skin that is stretched by use of these hooks across the top of the drum.

In my hand you see a wrench, and the wrench actually matches with the size of this hook. Because at the bottom, there is a little bolt here…So, by going, as we would say, counterclockwise to you or from you, you will loosen or add tension, because the hook is pulling on and stretching this animal skin across the top of the drum.

Watch, it might not change really quickly, but you will notice there will be a change after a while, after the loosening of tension. Watch, I am going to loosen it now. I am pulling this wrench toward me, which is turning this little bolt at the bottom.

…And you hear a change.

So can you see? I am loosening it.

You want to loosen it evenly. You do not want it too tight at one pulling place or another. So, I am going to do it again.

Do you hear it changing?

I will do it faster.

Do you hear the change of notes?

Do you hear it going down? I think you do.

One more…

I know you can tell the difference now. I am going to begin by tuning it up, before I was tuning it down. So, here we go…placing the wrench in the right place, tuning it.

Going up…

You hear it going up again?

[conga]

I hear the sound changing.

One more time…

…And if your drum is really heavy. It does get to be a bit much. So, please pay attention as you are tuning it, because the drum could fall over. Another important note in tuning or detuning your instrument and preparing it to play solo, is you might want to just go with your feelings. You go with what sounds good for you. If you are going for ensemble playing, you might get a particular note that definitely supports the music, as you are the foundation along with a base player.

It is also important not to tune a conga of a particular size too high, because it will change the quality of sound. It will make it too flat or too tinny or if it is too loose, it just does not have the projection to put forward that note. It is a thing where you make the decision, but try to pay attention to the drum you are tuning, to how fast you are tuning it, if you are playing solo, and if you are playing in an ensemble. One more time, I am going to tune another one of these lugs up. Pressing it away from me…

That is almost where I started off at. One more time…Turning it again…Pushing it away…

That is how you tune and detune a conga.

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to play the shuffle pattern on the conga also known as the heel tip or heel toe pattern. This heel tip, or shuffle, or heel toe pattern is a way to play a lot of notes along with the rhythm of the music and actually make the music a bit more exciting. Listen I’m going to play for you and hope you like it.

Now, I will explain you are placing your palm and the tip of your hand in an alternating fashion in the rhythm of whatever music or exercise you’re doing. Like this.

If you want to increase your speed you just try a little harder. Like this.

So if you add in both hands it will sound like this, starting slow.

That is how you play the shuffle, heel toe, or heel tip pattern.

Transcript

I’m gonna show you how to play a mute or a muffled tone on the conga. It is different from the open tone because your actually stopping the sound but just enough so that the drum still has a great sound, watch. I’m gonna play an open tone first like this.

And now I’m gonna play a muted tone.

You can hear it, there’s also a little change in the pitch. Listen,

open,

And muted. So,

Open,

Muted.

Open,

Mute. I’m gonna play a series of both the muted and the open tone and you’ll hear the difference OK. Again, your positioning is the same as the open tone but you want to pay attention to pointing this part of your hand in the same area on the skin first, like this.

Open tone.

Muted tone. So now I’ll play a little bit and you’ll listen, you’ll hear the difference.

Okay. Did you like that? That is how you play the muted tone on the conga.

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to play the slap tone on the conga. It involves using the tips of your fingers to the center of the conga, like this.

And don’t feel bad if it doesn’t sound so good at first. You will compensate when you learn how to increase your notes and their qualities, like this.

You’re actually stopping the note. And, to tell you another big secret there are two slaps on the conga.

The closed slap, like this.

And the open slap, like this.

The closed slap, like this.

The open slap, like this.

So, I’m going to play a few for you. You listen. I hope you enjoy.

And that is how you play the slap on the conga.

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to play the bass tone on the conga. The conga. It is played with the whole of your hand, the whole palm of your hand touching the center of the drum like this. Watch me, really relaxed; other hand; or you can do two together.

You want to relax when you’re playing the conga, like any other instrument. So even though it’s physical, you want to play with a certain feeling of movement, like this, the bass note. So if you were playing a lot of them, they sound like this. So that was a tone that I played after the bass. So again, the bass. And that is how you play the bass note on the conga.

Transcript

I want to teach you how to play an open tone on the conga. The conga. You start by allowing your hand to hit the top of the conga in a very relaxed fashion. Like this. Always looking at your position, not moving too far into the drum for the open tone, not moving too far to the back because you want to place your hand evenly on the drum in a relaxed fashion.

I know you can do it. Let’s do it with me. Open tone, next open tone, next open tone, next open tone. Sometimes it will sound a little different, but that’s only because your placement is changing. Open tone, really watching where you put your hand when you’re striking the drum, like this.

The other hand. I’m going to play what is known as a roll of open tones which is tones and tones and tones, and you get the idea. Remember to relax. The more you try, the better will be your result and your outcome. Again, one more time. Open tone, right hand. Left hand. Two hands together, like what they call a flam. Open tone right hand. Open tone left hand. That’s how you play an open tone on the conga.

Transcript

Okay everybody, I’m going to give you an overview of the conga. The conga is a drum that actually comes from Cuba, but listen to this. It’s really, really from the Congo, okay? These drums that you see in front of me are drums that first originated as molasses barrels. Can you believe that? You know, molasses barrel like how they put molasses in it.

The people in Cuba change the molasses barrel to an instrument by putting a skin over it. The first congas had these pins or nails to hold the heads together. If you look here you’ll see these kind of hooks that help stretch this animal skin across the top of this chamber. The conga has two openings. It has one at the top that I was playing, and also down here at the bottom. Okay? Over the years it gets fancy, you know? It’s a beautiful instrument.

I want to show you the sounds of the conga. They are bass, tone, and slap. First the bass. Next the tone. And next the slap. If you have two drums, you have two basses. Two tones. Two slaps. You put all that together, and you start making music. The music of the conga. This has been an overview of the music of the conga.

Transcript

Speaker 1: This is the difference between the conga and the djembe. If you look closely, you see the conga is a little taller, djembe in this time is a little shorter. The tension on the skin is achieved by the pulling with these metal rods. The djembe is with a rope. Okay? The bass that comes out of this small bottom is played here. Your bass? My tone is played here.

Speaker 2: My tone is right here.

Speaker 1: My slap has an advance from the tone area to the slap area like this. More center.

Speaker 2: So my slap doesn’t go in the center. My slap stays into the drum. My slap is like this.

Speaker 1:Wow. I hope everybody caught that. We’re going to play a little bit for you to show you the color and sound of this wonderful instrument playing with another wonderful instrument. The conga and the djembe. Now you’ve heard the difference in sound, but there’s really not that many differences. You can appreciate the differences in both instruments, the conga and the djembe.

Transcript

You want your drum to last a long time. How do you maintain your djembe drum? I’m going to give you some great tips on how to make sure that your drum lasts a long time and hopefully, generation to generation. The first and most important thing to realize is that the skin does not last forever. It’s goat’s skin, the more you play it, the tighter it gets. Eventually, it can rip and it’ll be replaced. So the most important thing to consider, when maintaining your drum and taking care of it is protecting the wood. Most well made djembe have some kind of wax or oils, or something to protect the wood. You want to look at your drum closely and see if there is something on it, protecting it. If you don’t know, then try to ask somebody. But, you want to make sure the wood is protected.

With that said, realize that it is wood, it’s natural. So don’t put it next to the heater. Don’t throw it. If you bring it on the airplane, pack it very, very well. Because anything that shocks the wood will crack it. This drum is very strong, I could stand on it. But if I drop it, and it’s shocked, it could crack. So you want to be careful when transporting the drum, or moving it. You don’t want to keep it in any extreme weather or any extreme climate change. You don’t want to keep it in a car if it’s very, very hot. Anything like that can damage the wood and also the skin. If the skin is very, very tight, you have to make sure that nothing sharp touches the skin, or no water.

One time I got caught in a rainstorm, my bag was not waterproof and my drum popped because too much water got on the skin and it makes it weak. So you want to make sure that you protect the drum from anything extreme. And also, you don’t have to put oils and lotions on the skin, it doesn’t make it last longer. People think the skin will be protected, the more oil you put on it. Well, the pores of the goat are no longer living, they cannot absorb the oil and what happens is, you create a film over the drum and it doesn’t sound good, after a while. So the skin, leave it alone, keep it natural. The wood, protect it. And then your drum will last a long time. These are some tips on how to maintain your djembe.

Transcript

OK. I’m going to show you some quick tips on how to tune your djembe. These are for rope tuned djembes.

The first thing you’ve got to look is at each strand you’re counting as one, so you’re going to make a weaving pattern. This is one. This is two. You’re going to take your chord, and you’re going to go under two, under this one, under this one, and then you’re going to pull it across. What we’re going to do is weave these two so that we can tighten them by flipping them, and this brings the ring down and tightens your drum.

You just want to tighten your drum until you like it. Don’t overtighten, because you can pop the skin, and you don’t have to tighten into a specific pitch. So I take the strand. If it’s too hard for your fingers, you can get a screwdriver or something. I just kind of push it under. It is under one. I go to the second one. Under two. I pull through. Sometimes I put my foot on the drum. It’s OK. Here’s under two. Now you’ll see the chord is under two strands, one, two. We’re not quite done. We go under two, over one, under one, so we weave back. Under two, over one, under one, like this.

Try to keep the chord straight, and you’ll see now that as I start to pull this, I’m pulling those two pieces of rope closer together. Sometimes if the drum is tight, you want to use something like a stick or a mountain climbing cleat to grab the rope if it’s really hard to pull. It depends on where you are in tuning the drum. I like to take a stick. I put it over the rope, I go around, and then I turn it, and I do figure eights. This will lock the stick in place. You see? Then, using my feet, I’m going to pull until it flips over. You see? And this is going to tighten your drum.

Now, just to make sure it stays, I start the next sequence. I go under the rope just like that, I pull it through, keep it low, and this will help lock it. See? The tension here is holding this rope so it doesn’t unsnap. And then you want to check the skin and make sure you’re not overtightening. But these are some tips on how to tune your djembe.

Transcript

Okay, here’s a very quick overview on how a djembe from West Africa is made. The drums from West Africa are handmade, and they’re made out of one piece of wood. It’s very solid. One piece of hard wood. The woods have different names from Africa. You have acajou, lenge, fady. You have duki-duki wood. Many different types of names for hard woods, but they’re very dense. That gives the best sound for the djembe.

You have a different person for each part of the drum. One person does the sanding. One person carves the inside of the drum. One person carves the outside of the drum. And one person may do the decoration. These are different hand tools that are used. It takes a long time, a lot of work, but you’ll notice that the drum is carved very cleanly on the inside. You’ll see that there’s a bowl shape. This is what helps the drum sound good. If you look inside a drum and you see that it’s not smooth, not carved well, then it’s not professionally carved.

The drum is made by taking the wood, taking some rope. We like to use very strong, strong rope so that when you stretch the skin you get a good pull out of the skin. What they do is they take the skin, they place it over the drum, and they have two rings. Then the rope will weave up and down from the ring to the bottom ring and then they pull it tighter and tighter until the drum becomes very tight and has a higher pitch. The skin is shaved. It’s a goat skin, and it’s shaved by hand. We like to shave them by hand because that makes the best sound. Some people will take chemicals to take the hair off, but then the sound won’t be as good. So you have goat skin. You have very dense African wood, and you have very strong rope. That’s for a handmade djembe.