Launching Limited Edition Hendra Duo Percussion Album !!! Genre World Music..so pasti asik broo..pemesanan bs lewat Yudhie:0857897009 or Aredoen Distro online or Badger Store Jl. Trunojoyo No.6 Bandung , PIMP Distro Jl.Colombo No.26 Yogyakarta and PIMP Distro Jl.Pulau Kawe 40 C Denpasar Bali..buruan sebelum kehabisan!!!!
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2009
LIMITED ALBUM NOW LAUNCHING
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
History of Percussion Instruments
Anthropologists and historians repeatedly speculate that percussion instruments were the first musical apparatus ever came into being. But with the utmost certainty, the human voice was the first musical instrument, and surely, percussion tools such as feet, hands, rocks, sticks and logs came in second to the on-going evolution of music. When humans developed tools for hunting and agriculture, their knowledge along side with skill, enabled them to produce more complex tools. They use slit drum, made from a hollowed-out tree trunk. For instance, a simple log may have been shaped to generate louder tones (log drum) and may have been pooled to create numerous tones (set of log drums).
As time moved on, so is the evolution of percussion instruments. In the early 10th century, it was known that most tribes in Africa use sorts of percussions such as djembe, macaras used in Latin America, karimbas in Asia and seed rattles in Australia for their recreational and worship rituals and sometimes used in sending signals.
Percussion instruments that are displayed in orchestra first came from Asia Minor. In the 15th century, people began migrating east and brought with them numerous instruments. Our percussion instruments got their initial stages there, when the Crusades took back the drums that they found in the Middle East. From then on, evolution of percussion and drums kicked up a notch and assortments of percussion instruments came into being.
Percussion is categorized by a variety of criteria at times depending on their cultural origin, construction and function within musical orchestration. It is generally referred as ?the hearbeat? of a musical ensemble, often functioning close collaboration with bass instruments if present.
Drums and percussions as well as bass are known as the rhythm section of the most popular music genres. Most classical pieces written for an orchestra since the time of Mozart and Haydn are schemed to put emphasis on strings, brass and woodwinds. However, time and again they include a pair of timpani (kettle drums) although not played continuously. But moderately, they serve to offer additional accents when needed.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, more percussion instruments (like the cymbals or triangles) came to being and frequently, again moderately and cautiously played in general. The massive uses of percussion instruments become more recurrent in the 20th century, on classical music.
In almost all types of music, percussion plays a fundamental role. In a military parade, it is the strike of the bass drum that holds the soldiers in step and at a normal speed, and it is the snare that endows that crisp, vital air to the tune of a troop. In traditional jazz, one almost instantly thinks of the distinguishing rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word "swing" is uttered. In more current popular music genres, it is almost impossible to name at least three or four rock, hip-hop, rap, funk, punk, techno, grunge, alternative and blues songs that don?t have some kind of percussive beat maintaining the tune in time.
Because of the mixture and wide assortments of percussive instruments, it is not unusual to find large musical gathering composed wholly of percussion. Rhythm, harmony and melody are all evident and alive in these musical factions, and in live performances they are quite a spectacle to see.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A Guide to the Jembe
The jembe (spelled djembe in French writing) is on the verge of achieving world status as a percussion instrument, rivaled in popularity perhaps only by the conga and steel pan. It first made an impact outside West Africa in the 1950s due to the world tours of Les Ballets Africains led by the Guinean Fodeba Keita. In the few decades succeeding this initial exposure the jembe was known internationally only to a small coterie of musicians and devotees of African music and dance. In the U.S. interest in the jembe centered around Ladji Camara, a member of Les Ballets Africains in the 1950s, who since the 1960s has trained a generation of American players. Worldwide, a mere handful of LP recordings were released up to the mid-1980s, most containing just a few selections of jembe playing.
Since the late 1980s international interest in the jembe has taken an unprecedented turn. Well over a dozen CD recordings exclusively featuring jembe ensembles have been released in addition to as many recordings featuring the jembe in mixed ensembles. Tours of national ballet troupes from Guinea, Mali, and Senegal, and former drummers from these troupes are playing to swelling crowds. Jembe teachers are proliferating, with some of them leading study tours to Africa, and major drum manufacturers have recently found a market for industrially produced jembes.
Reasons for the delayed international impact of the jembe are varied. Weak ties and language differences between the U.S. and the former French colonies in which the jembe is indigenous are responsible for the late migration of Francophone West Africans to North America in significant numbers. The death of Guinean President Sekou Toure in 1984, after two and a half decades of strong patronage of the arts and increasingly severe repression and international alienation, opened the doors for foreigners to visit, and also forced some Guineans to look abroad to fill the void left by sharply reduced patronage. Shortly after the Sekou Toure era, Guinean drummers Mamady Keita and Famoudou Konate had established themselves in Europe. Les Ballets Africains (which became the national ballet of Guinea after independence in 1958) began releasing CDs through European management. A group of drummers primarily drawn from Ballet Djoliba (established in 1965 as a second national ballet in Guinea) began touring and releasing CDs as Percussions de Guinee (established in 1988 as a national ensemble), also under European management. A recent tour with ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland contributed to their renown. The world music boom, begun in the late 1980s and showing no signs of letting up, is also a significant factor, with organizations such as WOMAD in England producing tours including jembe -based groups such as Fatala from Guinea and Farafina from Burkina Faso.
Mass interest in the jembe has not been accompanied by serious information on its use in its African homeland. Misconceptions about the instrument abound. Basic questions such as who plays the instrument, on what kinds of occasions, in which countries, and in what kinds of ensembles are ill- understood outside Africa. Few non-native jembe players have spent significant amounts of time in Africa to see how the jembe functions in the environment in which it flourishes. African jembe teachers living abroad try their best to communicate the depth of the instrument to their foreign students, but aside from the classic problem of interpreting a foreign culture, there is another more basic problem: language.English is often a fourth, fifth, or even sixth language spoken by jembe players, following their mother tongue (often Maninka, Susu, or Bamana), a second African language (such as Fula, Wolof, Soninke, or Bobo), frequently a third or fourth African tongue, and French. African rhythmic concepts for which there are no equivalents in European languages are all the more difficult to explain, let alone the experience and meaning of playing for events such as circumcisions and excisions.
Even spelling is cause for confusion. Since most African languages have no indigenous writing system, European scripts have been adopted. The English j sound is represented in West African French writing as dj , di or sometimes dy . The English long u sound is written as ou in French. Non-African-language speakers put a European or American accent on some of the French spellings that can further corrupt the African pronunciation. Such is the case with the rhythm spelled Mandiani in French, and sometimes mispronounced Man-dee-ahn-ee by English speakers. The French spelling djembe has been accepted by a public unaware of the colonial legacy implied in such a simple matter as spelling. It is not a French instrument, but an African one. Africans and non-Africans alike are developing systems for writing Bamana and Maninka using phonetic spellings rather than the ornate French that harkens back to the colonial era. The simplification of French spellings such as djembe, Mandiani, and Doundounba to jembe, Manjani, and Dundunba, addresses this problem while promoting African pronunciations.
There are other problems besides language that ex-patriate African jembe teachers must surmount. African methods of learning work in Africa: watching, doing, being criticized, revising, and apprenticing. But how can those methods work in weekly lessons or classes with little chance for students to see how jembe players interact with dancers one-on-one? African jembe teachers have had to creatively find new means of transmitting their knowledge to non-African students. This often skews and dilutes the tradition in which they were brought up. Fluid rhythms get simplified and become fixed. Improvisation is kept to a minimum. The ebb and flow of tempo, linked to the heat generated by dancers, is attenuated. The original context in which these rhythms and dances were performed is lost.
Adapting village traditions to new contexts is not new for jembe players. One of the ideas behind the creation of national ballets after political independence was to present the indigenous drumming and dance traditions to an international audience. The dance circle of the village was broken and spread out in a line so that a seated, non-participating audience could see.
Rhythms from regions far apart, which would not mix in a village context, were combined in rapid succession in long suites for ballet performances showcasing the variety of music and dance found in a single country. Instruments that were rarely played together were combined in national ensembles. The forces behind these syntheses were often those who were exposed to European education and culture. The naming of regional and national groups as Ballets , Ensembles , and Orchestres , reflects this European influence. The task of the ensemble and ballet leaders was to retain the African essence of the music and dance traditions, while moving them onto the stage. A new genre was created in the process.
Most recently, another genre has grown out of ballet-style jembe playing, exemplified by the concert performances and recordings of Mamady Keita and of Percussions de Guinee . The new ensembles further remove jembe drumming from its village roots by almost entirely dispensing with dancers. Focus is shifted to the ensemble arrangements and the charisma and virtuosity of the soloist. This use of the jembe is bound to stir mixed emotions among Africans in general, and even among the drummers themselves. The thought of an African drum taking the modern industrialized world by storm must have some appeal to Africans seeking recognition of their deep cultural legacy. On the other hand, the possible bastardization of a sacred tradition may be too high a price to pay for a fleeting commercial success with a typically fickle American public. The frustrations of some African teachers when they hear their village rhythms being played wrong are becoming more visible in workshops.
S
o how can one go about studying the jembe ? In lieu of going to Africa to learn about the traditions first-hand--certainly the preferred method--one can learn from the African jembe masters who have either relocated or spend considerable amounts of time in America and Europe. The list is growing: the venerable Ladji Camara (New York), Djimo Kouyate (Washington, D.C.), Abdoul Doumbia (Providence, RI), Mamady Keita (Brussels), Adama Drame (France), Arafan Toure (Holland), and Famoudou Konate (Berlin), to name just a few who have recordings available. Summer jembe camps and workshops are springing up across the U.S., and younger African teachers are relocating where there is demand. A list of several hundred subscribers interested in the jembe is active on the internet, and is a good source for information about workshops and teachers. (Those with internet access can subscribe by sending e-mail to listproc@u.washington.edu with the message: subscribe DJEMBE-L firstname lastname.)
There is very little writing about the jembe and its native environment, but surely that will change in the wake of the flurry of recordings. The few books that have been written each demand a critical eye to put them in perspective. One book (Diallo & Hall 1989) is written by a Malian of Minianka origin, on the periphery of the core tradition. Another autobiography (Drame & Senn-Borloz 1992) has yet to be translated into English, and it reports on traditions in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, also removed from the core Malian and Guinean traditions. These books are co-authored by writers with little musicological experience, so they lack that perspective. The transformation in the U.S. of a Senegalese drumming tradition--which actually is a transformation of one from Guinea--is covered by Mark Sunkett (1995). A booklet accompanying a Famoudou Konate CD (1991), written by his student Johannes Beer, provides a musicological introduction to jembe rhythms (in German and French only), as does a French book by a student of Adama Drame (Blanc 1993). A musicology Masters thesis by Rainer Polak in progress at the University of Bayreuth, based on research in Bamako, should continue to open up jembe playing to the kind of detailed rhythmic analysis that has been standard for drumming from Ghana for the past two decades.
Since the late 1980s international interest in the jembe has taken an unprecedented turn. Well over a dozen CD recordings exclusively featuring jembe ensembles have been released in addition to as many recordings featuring the jembe in mixed ensembles. Tours of national ballet troupes from Guinea, Mali, and Senegal, and former drummers from these troupes are playing to swelling crowds. Jembe teachers are proliferating, with some of them leading study tours to Africa, and major drum manufacturers have recently found a market for industrially produced jembes.
Reasons for the delayed international impact of the jembe are varied. Weak ties and language differences between the U.S. and the former French colonies in which the jembe is indigenous are responsible for the late migration of Francophone West Africans to North America in significant numbers. The death of Guinean President Sekou Toure in 1984, after two and a half decades of strong patronage of the arts and increasingly severe repression and international alienation, opened the doors for foreigners to visit, and also forced some Guineans to look abroad to fill the void left by sharply reduced patronage. Shortly after the Sekou Toure era, Guinean drummers Mamady Keita and Famoudou Konate had established themselves in Europe. Les Ballets Africains (which became the national ballet of Guinea after independence in 1958) began releasing CDs through European management. A group of drummers primarily drawn from Ballet Djoliba (established in 1965 as a second national ballet in Guinea) began touring and releasing CDs as Percussions de Guinee (established in 1988 as a national ensemble), also under European management. A recent tour with ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland contributed to their renown. The world music boom, begun in the late 1980s and showing no signs of letting up, is also a significant factor, with organizations such as WOMAD in England producing tours including jembe -based groups such as Fatala from Guinea and Farafina from Burkina Faso.
Mass interest in the jembe has not been accompanied by serious information on its use in its African homeland. Misconceptions about the instrument abound. Basic questions such as who plays the instrument, on what kinds of occasions, in which countries, and in what kinds of ensembles are ill- understood outside Africa. Few non-native jembe players have spent significant amounts of time in Africa to see how the jembe functions in the environment in which it flourishes. African jembe teachers living abroad try their best to communicate the depth of the instrument to their foreign students, but aside from the classic problem of interpreting a foreign culture, there is another more basic problem: language.English is often a fourth, fifth, or even sixth language spoken by jembe players, following their mother tongue (often Maninka, Susu, or Bamana), a second African language (such as Fula, Wolof, Soninke, or Bobo), frequently a third or fourth African tongue, and French. African rhythmic concepts for which there are no equivalents in European languages are all the more difficult to explain, let alone the experience and meaning of playing for events such as circumcisions and excisions.
Even spelling is cause for confusion. Since most African languages have no indigenous writing system, European scripts have been adopted. The English j sound is represented in West African French writing as dj , di or sometimes dy . The English long u sound is written as ou in French. Non-African-language speakers put a European or American accent on some of the French spellings that can further corrupt the African pronunciation. Such is the case with the rhythm spelled Mandiani in French, and sometimes mispronounced Man-dee-ahn-ee by English speakers. The French spelling djembe has been accepted by a public unaware of the colonial legacy implied in such a simple matter as spelling. It is not a French instrument, but an African one. Africans and non-Africans alike are developing systems for writing Bamana and Maninka using phonetic spellings rather than the ornate French that harkens back to the colonial era. The simplification of French spellings such as djembe, Mandiani, and Doundounba to jembe, Manjani, and Dundunba, addresses this problem while promoting African pronunciations.
There are other problems besides language that ex-patriate African jembe teachers must surmount. African methods of learning work in Africa: watching, doing, being criticized, revising, and apprenticing. But how can those methods work in weekly lessons or classes with little chance for students to see how jembe players interact with dancers one-on-one? African jembe teachers have had to creatively find new means of transmitting their knowledge to non-African students. This often skews and dilutes the tradition in which they were brought up. Fluid rhythms get simplified and become fixed. Improvisation is kept to a minimum. The ebb and flow of tempo, linked to the heat generated by dancers, is attenuated. The original context in which these rhythms and dances were performed is lost.
Adapting village traditions to new contexts is not new for jembe players. One of the ideas behind the creation of national ballets after political independence was to present the indigenous drumming and dance traditions to an international audience. The dance circle of the village was broken and spread out in a line so that a seated, non-participating audience could see.
Rhythms from regions far apart, which would not mix in a village context, were combined in rapid succession in long suites for ballet performances showcasing the variety of music and dance found in a single country. Instruments that were rarely played together were combined in national ensembles. The forces behind these syntheses were often those who were exposed to European education and culture. The naming of regional and national groups as Ballets , Ensembles , and Orchestres , reflects this European influence. The task of the ensemble and ballet leaders was to retain the African essence of the music and dance traditions, while moving them onto the stage. A new genre was created in the process.
Most recently, another genre has grown out of ballet-style jembe playing, exemplified by the concert performances and recordings of Mamady Keita and of Percussions de Guinee . The new ensembles further remove jembe drumming from its village roots by almost entirely dispensing with dancers. Focus is shifted to the ensemble arrangements and the charisma and virtuosity of the soloist. This use of the jembe is bound to stir mixed emotions among Africans in general, and even among the drummers themselves. The thought of an African drum taking the modern industrialized world by storm must have some appeal to Africans seeking recognition of their deep cultural legacy. On the other hand, the possible bastardization of a sacred tradition may be too high a price to pay for a fleeting commercial success with a typically fickle American public. The frustrations of some African teachers when they hear their village rhythms being played wrong are becoming more visible in workshops.
S
o how can one go about studying the jembe ? In lieu of going to Africa to learn about the traditions first-hand--certainly the preferred method--one can learn from the African jembe masters who have either relocated or spend considerable amounts of time in America and Europe. The list is growing: the venerable Ladji Camara (New York), Djimo Kouyate (Washington, D.C.), Abdoul Doumbia (Providence, RI), Mamady Keita (Brussels), Adama Drame (France), Arafan Toure (Holland), and Famoudou Konate (Berlin), to name just a few who have recordings available. Summer jembe camps and workshops are springing up across the U.S., and younger African teachers are relocating where there is demand. A list of several hundred subscribers interested in the jembe is active on the internet, and is a good source for information about workshops and teachers. (Those with internet access can subscribe by sending e-mail to listproc@u.washington.edu with the message: subscribe DJEMBE-L firstname lastname.)
There is very little writing about the jembe and its native environment, but surely that will change in the wake of the flurry of recordings. The few books that have been written each demand a critical eye to put them in perspective. One book (Diallo & Hall 1989) is written by a Malian of Minianka origin, on the periphery of the core tradition. Another autobiography (Drame & Senn-Borloz 1992) has yet to be translated into English, and it reports on traditions in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, also removed from the core Malian and Guinean traditions. These books are co-authored by writers with little musicological experience, so they lack that perspective. The transformation in the U.S. of a Senegalese drumming tradition--which actually is a transformation of one from Guinea--is covered by Mark Sunkett (1995). A booklet accompanying a Famoudou Konate CD (1991), written by his student Johannes Beer, provides a musicological introduction to jembe rhythms (in German and French only), as does a French book by a student of Adama Drame (Blanc 1993). A musicology Masters thesis by Rainer Polak in progress at the University of Bayreuth, based on research in Bamako, should continue to open up jembe playing to the kind of detailed rhythmic analysis that has been standard for drumming from Ghana for the past two decades.
Percussion Show Solutions "Shake Well Before Use"
One of trickiest situations a drummer/percussionists can find themselves in is that of a pit orchestra for a Broadway style show. Tricky because, among other reasons, he or she is often faced with a part that leaves little or no time to switch to a "proper" mallet.
Additionally, they may be asked to combine two percussion parts into one in order to provide the most percussion for the production. Then, by doing so, find that they've created a part that has them bouncing back and forth between two very different instruments. Forget the notes, the challenge becomes which stick or mallet to grab! In my spare time (as if my Day Gig wasn't enough) I freelance in just such orchestras and can offer a few of my solutions to these problems.
Perhaps the most effective and desirable approach is to simplify. Less is more for this setting. One common and effective way to simplify is to seek out multi-percussion sticks or double ended mallets . The most widely know versions of these are known as Swizzle sticks, but many of the companies now offer versions designed to solve the doubling situations that will occur in the a musical score. I personally have never "warmed up" to double ended mallets or sticks, but I do recognize how efficient they can be at tackling the problems that one will face.
Another approach is to look at the mallets in hand and see if they will work on both instruments or at least until another more appropriate mallet can be picked up. For example a bell mallet can be finessed to play a snare drum. Believe it or not with a little practice you can pull off a decent roll. At the very least, a simple Ump-Chick time pattern can be played with such a mallet.
Finally, the method I tend to gravitate towards combines a bit of both of the previously mentioned approaches. I might for example, turn a timpani mallet (wooden handle please!) around and play "time" on the hi-hat with one hand whilst grabbing another stick or mallet in anticipation of the next cue. Often times the part on the instrument can be "skeletally" played/covered and the audience , performers and MD won't notice or be concerned. Ultimately, the seamless shift (which is my goal) from instrument to instrument doesn't draw attention and will often lead to the comment "Wow, I can't believe there's only one percussionist!"
Offered above are some ideas you can try to see what works for you and your particular situation. Once the concepts are understood you may and should start to develop your own unique technique(s). After all "There's more than one way to skin a show" [phrase modified to conform to HUMANE SOCIETY regulations]
Sunday, April 19, 2009
History Of Percussion
Anthropologists and historians often speculate that percussion instruments were the first musical devices ever created. The human voice was probably the first musical instrument, but percussion instruments such as hands and feet, then sticks, rocks, and logs were almost certainly the next steps in the evolution of music.
The earliest percussion instruments were our hands and feet, then "found" objects such as sticks, logs, and hips. As humans developed tools for hunting and eventually agriculture, their skill and technology enabled them to craft more complex instruments. For example, a simple log may have been carved to produce louder tones (a log drum) and instruments may have been combined to produce multiple tones (as in a 'set' of log drums).
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