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enjoy
music t-shirts
"The
Creator wants us to drum. He wants us to corrupt the world with
drum, dance and chants. Afterall, we have already corrupted the
world with power and greed....which hasn't gotten us anywhere -
now's the time to corrupt the world with drum, dance and chants."
--Babatunde
Olatunji
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Rhythm of the Week...
Drumming Music Notation: Hand Drum Lessons with Easy Rhythm Instruction
for African Drumming Music, Latin Drumming and other Hand Drum Rhythms.
free music education resources and drumming tips for beginning or
advanced drummers...or anyone just wanting to groove with world
beat and alternative music
This Week's Lesson:
Old meets New: Generate Random Rhythms!
Recently I met with an old friend who found out about my interest
in drumming for the first time. He knew virtually nothing about
it, except that he supposed it was our oldest art. When we got to
talking about the actual rhythms involved in traditional African
drumming, I mentioned that threes and fours predominate. Still,
he wondered if there might be an "infinite" number of
possible combinations of beats. Checking out the math later, I came
up with a finite number for a sixteen beat pattern: 4,294,967. This
assumes three possible kinds of note--bass, tone, slap--for each
beat, plus the choice of a rest (-). Thus four possibilities, raised
to the sixteenth power. Oh, but the end result is really one less,
or 4,294, 966: because the one possibilty that doesn't count, has
a rest for all sixteen beats (- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -).
Enough esoterica. Now the computer can do in seconds what it took
humans 50,000 years or more to refine. We already have "found"
poetry, a pastiche of grocery list, newspaper blowing in the street,
TV news and snippet from tonight's book. Now let's find some new
rhythms, using what comes our way...
--Nowick Gray
2/4:
_______ _______
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4/4:
_______ _______ _______
_______
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3/8:
_____ _____
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6/8:
_____ _____ _____ _____
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The
rhythm notation . . .
The following notation can be easier for
drummers and percussionists to use, compared to the usual notes
and lines of conventional sheet music. Because drum notes aren't
sustained but struck once, it makes sense to show the timing for
these beats as single and equal. Rests are measured by the same,
single-beat units.
All the rhythms at this site, and in the
book Roots Jam, use the following
notation for drum beats--primarily those played on the west African
djembe.
D:
Dun ("Doon") = bass
beat with left hand
G: Gun ("Goon") = bass
beat with right hand
d: do ("doe") = rim
beat with left hand (tip half of fingers)
g: go = rim
beat with right hand
T: Ta = slap
beat with left hand: sharp glancing
stroke
P: Pa = slap
beat with right hand
- = space
About left and right hand
notes:
Though the majority of the rhythms displayed
here will show leading with the left hand, the handing can be reversed.
In fact it makes sense to play both ways equally well, or to alternate
for balance.
If you're just starting out and want to
follow my notation with a dominant right hand, you can treat D's,
d's and T's as right-hand beats, and G's, g's and P's as left-hand
beats.
Additional Notes:
X = low note on bass
drum or two-tone bell or percussion
x = any note on monotone percussion,
or high note on two-tone percussion.
[Another way to show hi/lo notes
is hi on first line, lo on second;
or by H and L]
k = bell note when played with bass
drum (jun-jun)
x = underlined (or bold) note means
stressed or accented.
(d) = parenthesis means optional note(s)
or way to play a given note(s)
d__g__d: = triplet, with three notes
played within 2, 4 or 8 beat measure.
d_g: = two notes played as if two ends
of a triplet (d_-_g)
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