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Teach Yourself Djembe!

The djembe is an african goblet-shaped hand drum. It is played in an ensemble with doundouns (bass drums) and bells, and this percussion music is interwoven with dance, work, magic, religion, folklore and festivals.

Although I have an interest and respect for the cultural aspects, the religion and the magic, I approach the djembe mainly as a musical instrument. I try to develop teaching material for it. On this site you will find an emphasis on music, notation, exercises and rhythms, on playing tips, on how to buy an instrument and take care of it, tune it and so forth.

The instruments

• Buying a djembe
• Djembe tuning
• Doundoun stand  
• Ensemble

The playing

• Djembe playing levels
• Playing technique
  Introduction
  Bass
  Tone
  Slap

The music

• Basic rhythms
  Introduction * Exercise tips
  4/4 rhythms * 30 traditional rhythms
  6/8 rhythms * 30 traditional rhythms
• Breaks * Liven up your performance
• Dennadon * Your first rhythm
• Diansa * Seny Touré * Full dance solo
• Djaa * Dance of seduction
• Djole * Let's party!
• Kakilambé * Polyrhythmic example
• Liberté * Independence
• Polyrhythms * 2 against 3
• Rolls or roulements * Solo on S
• Rumba * Ousmane Seye * Full dance solo
• Soli * Ousmane Seye * Full dance solo
• Solo dance phrases * Tips and rules
• Triplets * Another solo technique

The folklore

• Culture
• Making a djembe
• Video's
• Djembe master  

The rest

• About me * Contact and workshops
• About this site  
• Teaching methods
• Software
• Yankadi font
  Introduction * Write beautiful music
  Notation primer * Simple tutorial
  Notation A to Z * The advanced bits
  Keyboard map * All the symbols

Note: Quite a few pages on this site use a special font to display music notes.
It is only two clicks to install the Yankadi font, and it is free, so I hope you will install it!

Anta - Traditional ensemble. From left to right: accompaniment djembe, kenkeni, sangban and doundounba players, and solo djembe player.

Credits
The header of this site incorporates a painting made especially for me by Kyra Greff.

Making printouts
Many pages have a small printer icon next to the title: use it to hide all non-essential stuff so you can make a printout of the music! Ctrl-click on the printer icon to get smaller notes.

Links
Various links for your enjoyment!

Djembe - Djembe African Drums, Bags, Stands & Hand Drums at X8 Drums
SoundManager2 - The muscle behind the little play icons on this site!

Enjoy, and Happy Drumming!
Dennis

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Last updated: 09 June 2008 at 09:47:12