Posts Tagged ‘djembe’

Caxixi Musical

Caxixi Musical

Leon Mobley

Leon Mobley

Professional Djembe Drum

A Brief History about African Music

African music is arguably the most influential music in all of mankind. But it did not come out of a vacuum.

The truth is that different regions of Africa were influenced by a number of foreign musical traditions. For example, many nations in North Africa can trace their more recent musical lineage back to the Greeks and Romans who once governed over the area. Later there was also a substantial Middle Eastern influence on their music.

Other parts of the African continent were similarly affected by foreign music. Parts of East Africa and the offshore islands were influenced by Arabic music and Indian music in more recent times. While Southern, Central and West Africa had been influenced by the music of North America and Western Europe.

Other African music can be attributed to specific dance forms such as the rumba and salsa, which were founded by African slaves who settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this article we will be exploring the different kinds of African music and where it originated.

North Africa

The music of North Africa was strongly influenced by the music of ancient Egypt and the early Arabs. Although it is one of the least popular forms of contemporary African music, it is historically important and merits a good look at by all those interested in traditional music.

Sub-Saharan Music

No music is more purely African than music that originated in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though many regions were influenced by other nations, Sub-Saharan music remains quintessentially African. Because writing and reading came late to parts of Africa, this music was created as a form of communication. In time, it became an interesting and exciting, communal way to celebrate and mark several major milestones in a person's life. For example, there are literally hundreds of African songs and music that celebrate marriage, childbirth or even hunting parties.

Music is also played to scare off evil spirits and to pay homage to deceased ancestors. African music of this type is almost always accompanied by a specific dance or ceremony. It is often performed by professional musicians who have knowledge and experience with ceremonial music.

Because music from Sub-Saharan Africa focused on communal singing, it was one of the earliest to emphasize the use of harmony and structured singing. These singing methods ranged from simple rhythmic structures to incredibly complex and elaborate structures based on improvisation and several variations.

Instruments

Though stringed instruments, bells, flutes and even xylophones were all used in traditional African music, there is nothing more important than the basic African hand drum. In fact, there are literally dozens of drums that are played on different occasions. A few of the most popular drums that are used in a traditional African musical include: bougarabou, tama talking drums, djembe, water drums and a many different kinds of ngoma drum that are played in parts of Central and Southern Africa.

These drums are almost always accompanied by singers or choruses who often keep time with rattles, shakers, woodsticks, bells or by simply clapping their hands' or stumping their feet.

About the Author

To get more info on African music visit the African Side website and listen to free African music. Then download the African musical CD by Georgy B - The king of Afro Talk music.

Professional Djembe Drum

Made Djembe Drum

Summer Holiday Activities for Children – Drumming Workshops

If you have children and are trying to decide what to do for the summer holiday with them, why not consider a drumming workshop. This is an activity that is gaining popularity in UK schools and which can be a lot of fun for children of all ages.

What are Drumming Workshops?

Drumming workshops are classes or programs that teach children how to do a specific style of drumming, often indigenous drumming. For instance, an instructor may teach children the art of indigenous Djembe drumming from Africa. Music schools and other specialised instructional organisations offer these workshops to schools and youth groups throughout the UK. The following are some of the advantages of drumming workshops as a summer activity for children.

Fun and Creative

Drumming is a fun and creative activity for children. They almost always enjoy it. It is thus a means to make their summer even more fun. Children often have a natural sense of rhythm and attraction to it. They will really like the excitement and fun of banging on a traditional drum with their hands along with others and will be creatively inspired by it. They may, for instance, begin composing their own drum beats and making up their own songs to go with the drumming they are doing.

Good Exercise/ Good for Coordination

Drumming can help develop coordination in your youngster and be good exercise in general. It involves coordinated hand eye motion and muscular control and exertion. As a parent you probably understand the benefits of fun and involving activities that get your child out of the house during the summer. You don't want them to sit around all day watching television or playing video games. Drumming is an activity that is very healthy on a number of levels. Many of these workshops are even done outdoors.

Culturally Educational

Learning indigenous drumming teaches children about the cultures where these drums and drumming styles were developed. This is thus an educational and diversification based experience for children that is good for their overall educational and cultural development. It is shows children that other cultures exist and that they have many interesting customs and practices. Music is a common thread that binds people of many different backgrounds together, so a drumming workshop is a great way to demonstrate both cultural diversity and an underlying continuity.

Allows for Social Interaction

Drumming workshops allow for social interaction and let children have fun and make friends. These groups often take the form of people sitting in a circle and doing the drumming activity. They are thus able to meet both other children and adults doing the drumming and encounter people they have not known before. It gives them an arena outside of the usual family and school contacts for social contact.

Can be Continued at Home

By simply buying a drum of the type that is taught in the workshop and taking it home, your child's drumming fun and education can continue after the workshop is over. They can practice drumming on their own and improve on it, perhaps enrolling in a subsequent workshop to demonstrate what they have learned. As the school year comes around again, they can do the drumming as an extracurricular activity.

 

 

About the Author

Are you wanting to buy a djembe drum for your child or school music group? The Djembe Drum Shop has a great choice of childrens musical instruments and percussion instruments which are available to order online. Pay a visit to their website at www.djembedrumshop.com.

Made Djembe Drum

Goat Skin Head

Sí Señor, Will That be Testicles or Head?

Alvin Starkman, M.A., LL.B.

 

Some say it’s one of the oldest professions, yet it garners little if any respect from most of the population notwithstanding the tradition that has been its trademark for generations:  the chivero, or slayer and preparer of goat, and its barbequing in an in-ground oven.  There are a number of other caprine cattle that are cooked in the ancient style, including ram and sheep.  Since the early nineties, here in Oaxaca the most popular / unlucky of these inhabitants of the hills has been the borrego pelibuey, a variety of sheep.

 

Oaxaca (wa-HAW-kah) is a colonial city tucked away in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre del Sur range in south central Mexico. Boasting no less than 16 indigenous cultures, it should come as no great shock that such a custom has been maintained in the state for hundreds if not thousands of years.  However the modern institution of baking a variety of meats in a pit extends far beyond Mexico, and in fact is practiced in the Caribbean, Central and South America, Hawaii, and much further abroad.  After all,  before the advent of coal, gas and electric ovens, if circumstances dictated something other than grilling over an open flame, our ancestors had little choice but to innovate in this fashion.    

 

What began with humankind’s Darwinian development of a simple invention of necessity has become a highly ritualized and esteemed convention.

 

Whether you’re traveling, visiting, working or living the life of a retiree abroad, as you  become integrated into your host society, on balance you’ll be invited to partake in at least a portion of the pomp and ceremony associated with barbacoa,  as it’s more commonly known in Mexico. 

 

In Oaxaca the custom is reserved for fiestas marking significant rites of passage such as key birthdays and anniversaries, and weddings.  It cuts across class lines, observance ranging from campesinos in the smallest of back road villages, to the upper class in the backyards of their luxurious homes in gated suburban communities.

 

While varying only minimally depending on local mores, practice begins with the purchase of the appropriate number of candidates at a private farm or livestock market…unless you’ve been raising your own.  One counts on each beast serving between about 25 and 40 people, depending on size.   Plumping them up for a few days never hurts, if you have the space and inclination. 

 

The chivero, frequently with associate, family member and/or young apprentice, arrives  a day before the comida (the largest meal of the day in Mexico, beginning anytime between 2 and 4 pm) to survey and give instructions before beginning.  Are the cooking vessels, additional accessories, related foodstuffs and pit appropriate for the task at hand, or will there have to be last minute purchases or adaptations?  Considerations include:  type, dimensions and quantity of leña (firewood); requisite river rocks; age, size and composition of oven; type of grate; and even sufficiency of loose soil.

 

The better part of that first afternoon consists of the slaughter and skinning, cutting and cleaning, with procedures marked by care and precision, right down to evacuating the inside of each and every inch of intestine with the nimblest of digital movements, akin to, and no less delicate a process than spinning yarn from raw wool.   Nothing is wasted.  Virtually every entrail, organ and liquid is gathered, prepared and set aside for later use.  No less important to the ultimate creation of a culinary coupe, parallel provisions are attended by others elsewhere in or around the home, principally the select array of vegetables is cored, cut and cubed, and herbs and seasonings sequestered.  Best to have a healthy compliment of friends and relatives on hand.  If you’re asked to attend a day early, you now know why. 

 

By evening the maestro is ready to begin the process of curing the oven.  One which measures roughly 3’ x  3’ x  4’ should accommodate about 4 animals for a party with upwards of 150 guests---the terracotta bricks lining the ground cavity need not have been fired to the same extent as those used in usual construction of homes, and the better view is to build the oven with minimally baked blocks.  Logs are lit by nightfall. The chivero has the option of thereafter returning home for a brief break, or napping on site until the madrugada, perhaps 2 or 3 in the morning, when he must add further firewood to ensure continued consistency of heat.  Atop this layer is strategically placed a stratum of rounded river rocks which will absorb and hold the heat pending completion of cooking. 

 

At about 7 am, more wood is added and allowed to burn off, but not before the skewered hearts are barbecued over the flames---a taco delicacy---and several agave or maguey leaves have been charred.  The previously prepared produce, with select innards and  water to cover, now in an oversized cast aluminum cauldron, is placed on the scorching stones, as is a mixture of large broken corn kernels with a separate set of flavorings. An iron grate containing the quartered meat including head and organs---either plain, or enchilada (spiced)---with avocado leaves and the grilled agave placed atop, is gingerly lowered onto the vegetable receptacles.  The blood, encased in stomach lining, is readied.     On top of all is placed the petate, a large mat of dried palm leaf or reed.  The subsequent coverings, at least one of which must be firm enough to withstand the weight of a final heavy layer, include one or more of a large flat grid of lengths of reinforced steel; a sheet of laminated metal; and a spread of sturdy plastic or vinyl.  For further assurance a hill of dirt is then shoveled on top of all, then compacted with the aid of a light hosing of water.  Tradition dictates that while the oven and its contents are being sealed for baking, a bottle of mezcal is placed within the mound of earth.  

 

From when the first match is lit, the foregoing steps are much more than mere convention.  They are carefully calculated, much in the same fashion as the most specific time and temperature stipulations contained in a difficult baking recipe in a gourmet cookbook.  However I have yet to determine the scientific roll played by the wooden cross set on the crest of the mountain of tierra firma…other than symbolic of burial.

 

Guests tend to arrive between 2:30 and 4:30 pm, by which time the blood has curdled to the consistency of a terrine style accompaniment, and entrée has been roasted to perfection, its juices having dripped into the casseroles thereby creating a flavorful,  vegetable and meat potage, and a thick starchy accompaniment, the corn having turned to mash aided by the meat’s juices.  At their option, at the chosen hour, males in attendance may take a shovel and aid in the unearthing of the oven, with the one encountering the piping hot bottle of mezcal---contents by then smooth to the extreme--- being given the privilege of serving shotsful to others in the fraternity of assisting amigos. 

 

The bouillabaisse is served, followed by the most tender, savory and succulent meat imaginable, with sides of sangre and the cooked large grain, preferably to the sound of live music.  And yes, a limited number of guests are presented with the available crania having been opened so that they can scoop brain and/or eye into tortilla and top with salsa before indulging.  Care must be taken to avoid insulting one to whom a head has been promised.  At a joint birthday bash thrown with a fellow Aquarian, en route to delivering the delicacy to a comadre I wished to honor, a friend stopped me at his table and by the time I’d arrived with the prize to its ultimate destination, almost all but a bare bone skull remained.   Finally, the testicles should be offered to others worthy of special tribute.  But once again be mindful.  At that same celebration, a five-goat-affair, someone absconded with all ten testes.

 

About the Author

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .

Goat Skin Head