Monday, February 18, 2013

Drumming Gig With Students From Belgium

 So I did another drumming gig with a school in George, Outeniqua High School...

There was a foreign exchange program coming to ts end...so the South African learners took their Belgian counterparts on a tour in a "Loxion"(Location - also called a settlement or township)
where the local people invited them into their shack homes, and danced for them when they left each house....what an amazing experience!!!






 The first photo is a picture of the set up that I used...25 Drums in a big circle, with a skinless shell on display....When I start my drum session(it was done as a Team Building Exercise), I always start by introducing the Djembe, telling them how its made(Machine - Lathe - made drums versus hand carved drums)...what type of skins are used, and a little history about the Djembe.


 Then we start our actual drumming by playing the three basic notes on the Djembe to get them used to the hand placement for those three notes...(If you go back to my earlier posts on this blog I describe the three basic notes in quite a bit of detail)

After that we start to play full rhythms from Ta-Ka-Doem-Ta...to...Heartbeat Rhythms, and even some interesting Polyrythms!!!






At a point in the session when I can see that everyone has got the general understanding of how to play the Djembe, I split the group into three smaller groups...give them 5mins to come up with their very own rhythm.  As you can imagine they compete fiercely with each other and I stir the pot a bit by going over to each group and telling them more or less what I want to hear.  Look how hard they are all concentrating...hehehe


This is the entire group once we were done...tired hands but happy faces...

I am so grateful that what I do for a living is, not only my passion, but it brings joyful memories to people that will not be forgotten for a very long time...

I am privileged to become a small part of all my drum students lives!!!!....




Should you want any more info on my Team Building Drum Sessions please feel free to email me on daniel@djembeman.co.za or even phone me on +2782958482!

Thank you for enjoying my blog with me!

Enjoy your day further!

Daniel Nicholson A.K.A "Djembeman"

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