African Drumming

[Kevin]

I am looking to write some african drum patterns for school next year, can anyone give me some guidance?

[Deleted]

Theoretical I have no clue, but what I'd do is try to get a hold of, and listen to, as many examples of what you want as you can find. Let your ears train your mind...

[Kevin]

Never thought of doing it that way, I will see what I can come up with, thanks.

[whataguy]

There are a numerous drum books that describe various kinds of African rhythms. Here are a few I found:

• West African Rhythms for Drumset by Royal Hartigan
• World Beat Rhythms: Beyond the Drum Circle - Africa: For Drummers, Percussionists and All Musicians by Maria Martinez , Ed Roscetti
• African Rhythms and Independence for Drumset by Mokhtar Samba and Dan Thress

These are pretty easy to understand. Plus, you don't have to go to the trouble of transcribing stuff from a bad recording. If you're sequencing these rhythms, you'll have to tweak them a bit for them to sound convincing.

[Ed Sharpe]

I have both: West African Rhythms for Drumset by Royal Hartigan and African Rhythms and Independence for Drumset by Mokhtar Samba and Dan Thress and both are good starting points, I do not the other book. The Mokhtar is bit terse when it comes on text, but plenty of examples. I have one other book, but I will have find it to tell you what it is, it is more a musiccology text and have very few examples, more on the context of the music in African socity.

[wizzarts]

here is what we do in Southafrica: It catches all the dif. ways. It is written for concertband and perc. Barimbou and Ballaphone are imitated by other instruments.

maybe it helps...

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