2013-07-15

The drums....the drums....the drums

Sometime recently, it has occurred to me that it is easy to steer clear of definitive connection with rhythm in our lives. So the aim was to take up drumming in some form. [An aside: Shortly after this realisation, we spontaneously got into the didgeridoo...another instrument that is extremely simple at it is an aerophone i.e. an instrument which only vibrates air in an uncontained vessel, in this case with the lips alone. See our post on making a dideridoo out of PVC pipe]. Now we have a djembe drum, which is one of the most basic (and hence, essential in our scheme of things) musical instruments. This is technically a membranophone. Chordophones are encompassed by the acoustic guitar and idiophones, the fourth of four major musical instrument classes is to be simulated in our second instrument...the Octapad.

The Octapad has been around for 30 years with very similar design, constantly being upgraded with the latest technology (it is something that has been in constant demand in the music industry). It is simply eight rubber square pads with a series of controls. These are hit with drumsticks and can be assigned almost any sound, but with a focus on timpani and a variety of world drum arrays. We can record several drum patterns in a phrase and repeat and overlay in order to djembe, strum a guitar or wobble a didge along to...kind of a drum machine with a human touch and a fabulous way to get self-created rhythms into the living room. 

Each of these instruments can be played alone but they each work well with each other allowing for many sound permutations.

We then set out to learn about didging (see the other page) and djembe-ing and also in general about drum patterning. The most instructive of these were the djembe patterns, which really geled all our ideas and instruments together in some fantastic heart-beat-type rhythms. The notation is, for example:  | B - T B | T T - - | which translates as 2 x 4/4 bars of Bassnote, muted, Tap, Bass etc which can  become very tonally rich on the djembe with practice. We are currently practicing some of these basics and looking at the diversity of phrases.

The challenge now, while driving around the bush, will be to find a good naturally termite-hollowed branch for an authentic didge and also another Aboriginal aerophone: the bullroarer, which is a short piece of wood tied to a rope which whirs as it is spun around your head!