Hotter than....

Bamako.

Seriously. According to the BBC website, Bamako is about 85 degrees today. We are in the upper 90s with hellish humidity.

And in Bamako we'd be sitting around drinking beer and playing djembes.

Sit, Stay, Bad Drum!

Update:

I screwed up on the head of my first bad drum. Nothing earth shattering, but a few rookie mistakes that I definitely won't make again.

First, I cut the skin a little too small to be able to fold a flap of fur over the edge, which is how I wanted to finish it. Especially on these drums, with the ridiculously oversized rings, it would have been nice to have fur hiding the mess underneath.

So, I had to clip the skin close to the rings. My mistake was that I did this before pulling the uprights, so the skin slipped a bit and I am not sure it is going to hold. I'll ask Sidy to inspect it for me tomorrow.

The next problem was that it was my first shave job with a double edged razor blade. I nicked the skin in a few places. I don't think it caused any structural damage, but I would have liked it if my shaving had come out nicer. I'll keep you posted on whether I have to rehead the drum again.

Even with those mistakes, I will say that the new head looks good. I will be interested to see if I can pull it tight enough to play.

Edited to add:

Sidy inspected the drum and said it was fine. Yippee!

Even a bad drum has something to teach

I am reheading a couple of drums that were poorly made. The rings are too big. The wood is cracked and badly carved. They were made from cheap softwood. The roping is a mess. When I took off the old skins they were filled with insect eggs. I think these drums were meant to be coffee tables, frankly. I almost feel bad putting new goatskins on them. I take some solace in the fact that said goats were made into stew that fed some families in Mali, so their lives were not completely wasted for the sake of bad drums.

But, I will say this, even working on a bad drum is a learning experience. In this case it is mostly what not to do... but even that has value.

By the book

I am a geek. Really.

When I get interested in something, I am the type who looks stuff up on the internet, checks books out of the library, joins online forums about it, researches the history and culture. I immerse myself in learning as much about something as I can.

Back when I read tarot cards, for example, I learned a lot about the history and cultural influences of the tarot. I knew a lot of fellow geeks online and spent countless hours debating whether the cards were European, Indian or Arabic in origin. I learned about the various characters involved in their development and, of course, started collecting historically significant decks. (One of which I sold to finance my trip to Mali in January.) But at some point, all the reading ABOUT tarot wasn't going to teach me to read the cards. For that I needed to actually DO it. A lot. With others. Maybe even study, gasp, with real, live teachers. (Being the geek that I was, I traveled to New York City to do that, but that is an entirely other story.)

The reason I am bringing all this up is because over the weekend I met folks who are trying to learn to play drums by reading books, studying videos, and downloading rhythms off the internet. They were, in other words, drum geeks. But strangely, when I suggested they check out a class with a real, live, teacher from Africa, they seemed almost, well, offended. There was an awkward silence, blank stares, mild horror. I laughed about it all the way home.

One of the great things about learning to play drums with a teacher is that you... learn. Like, my slaps and tones, today, are clear and distinguishable. I can play a very subtle rhythm correctly because I have been corrected by my teacher over and over again until I get it right. I learned a new rhythm last week, heard it again this week and now can more or less play it without having had to write it down or record it. (A major accomplishment if you ask me.)

I am certainly a person who learns comfortably by reading about things. But when it comes to playing an instrument, especially one as subtle as the djembe, I do not think it is possible to learn it by reading about it. I think you have to pull out the drum, go to a class and study with a teacher who knows what they are doing.

But maybe that's just me, lol.

And by the way, I am a member of no fewer than 3 djembe forums, have the books and download stuff off the internet all the time. But then I spend 12 to 14 hours a month in classes and practice every day.

Guts

Do you find yourself feeling vulnerable when you play? I have found that learning to play drums puts me in an extremely vulnerable place. I think it is because opening yourself up to be willing to try something new, with it's attendant mistakes and screw ups, you have to be willing to fail. And when your heart is really in it, failing requires that you drop all your normal defenses.

Last week, I drove to Fall River for a class with Sidy and on the way home, I was on the verge of tears, for no reason at all.

Actually, the reason had much more to do with what was going on that week in the rest of my life. I had been visiting a sick friend. My kid was out of town. My brother got laid off. My plans to visit my parents fell through. All kinds of things were bubbling away under the surface and when you sit down to play, you open yourself up to all that shit and up it comes. So the whole week's worth of emotions just came pouring out on the car ride home.

The inescapable fact is this: Playing djembe takes courage. It isn't for wimps. Because if you actually care about what you are doing, it is going to be hard. And to be open to failure requires that we break down all our normal walls.

Push comes to shove

Sidy has been pushing me lately.

In class, he'll sit with his head bowed, listening to me. Sometimes watching my hands intently. Then, he will lift his head, signal us to stop and tell me what I am doing wrong. "Your tones and slaps are muddy. They need to be clearer." or "That rhythm is off. You know you know it, but you are thinking too much and aren't able to play it."

I find this, frankly, thrilling.

I know he worries that I feel he is picking on me, but it is the exact opposite. I feel like I have reached some kind of threshold, where suddenly, it isn't about me ham-fistedly banging out the basic rhythms, but indeed, finessing the real essence of a piece from my drum. It is a refining process. It is, in other words, the kind of work that someone beyond beginner stage gets to do.

And believe me, it is a stretch. If I think about the tones and slaps, I mess up. If I think too much about anything, I lose my concentration and mess up. I am at the stage now where it works best for me to imitate what Sidy plays, rather than try and sort out what is a tone or slap, count the number of strokes, etc. I used to need to write it all down in black and white so I could wrap my brain around it. Now it is better to just listen and see if I can hear what I need to play and then try to play it. Over and over again.

Rhythms build slowly. First, it is a matter of remembering the handing. Then, the tones and slaps. Then, the swing of a piece begins to emerge. Then I listen to Sidy play it again, and it becomes painfully clear that it will be years before I can play it as beautifully as he does.

But that, too, is thrilling.

The drum is done!

I couldn't pull the uprights tight enough, but went ahead and threw a couple rows of diamonds in so I could check out the sound.

Sidy came by for a lesson today and pronounced the drum good. He even played it for awhile. Let me tell you, that was a complete thrill, listening to a djembefola playing a drum I rebuilt.

After he left, I took the diamonds out again and pulled the verticals tighter.... but I think I need a tool to be able to get them really tight.

I made a homemade rope pulling tool, but I broke it yesterday! Ha!

A new djembe head

Whew.

I spent the day putting a new skin on my friend Lisa's drum... and let me tell you, it's hard work! With this one I was starting from scratch: new rings, new red fabric wrapping the top ring, new rope harness and verticals. The hardest part was getting the rings to stay even on top. Sidy might tell me it's not right and make me take it all out again.

But at the end of the day, I am excited that I was able to do it. I pulled the uprights tight enough so that the rings slipped down a little, where Lisa likes them. And I have wrapped the fur ring in an Ace bandage so it will dry nice and close to the drum.

Next up: shaving it and tightening some more. Then tune it up and hand it over to it's patient owner!

Making peace with my arms

I have always had fat arms. It runs in my family. So even for the 3 months that I was skinny in High School, my arms were chubby.

I hide my arms a lot. I wear 3/4 length sleeves, or at the very least, short sleeves. I am shy to wear tank tops, even on the hottest days. This is especially true when I am playing my drum because all the fat jiggles around and calls attention to itself.

But lately, I have been noticing that underneath the layer of extra flesh, muscles are forming. I can feel them. It makes me realize that even though they aren't pretty, my arms ARE the things that allow me to play my drum.

So I think it is time to make peace.

Rebuilding a drum

I have never been one for crafts or art. I just don't really have the attention span. My dad, for example, will attack a carpentry project and spend months on it, going over every detail, making sure it is beautiful and functional when it is finished.

I have never had the temperament for that. I rush stuff. I throw things together. I want things to get done.

So why, dear readers, do I love messing with fixing drums so much? This has been a complete revelation to me. A couple of months ago, my teacher started letting me work on drums. He started slow: tune a student's drum, unstring one with a broken head. Restring one that he had replaced a head on.

This week, he gave me my friend's drum to rebuild. It needs new rings, a new head, the whole deal. I measured the drum to fit brand spanking new cold rolled steel rings. My husband is having them made for me. I soaked the skin to get the old rings out. I undid all the ropes. And as soon as I have the new rings, I am going to wrap the rope ring with red fabric and string the rope loops and mount the skin on the flesh ring and run the uprights and pull them tight.

And for some reason, as I do this, step by step, I don't feel rushed at all. I don't feel like I want it to be done already. I am just enjoying each part of the process.