How to Position the Djembe Drum When Playing

Video Transcript

Hello there my name is Aaron Moon and I’m here on behalf of expertvillage.com. Today I’ll be discussing different positionings that we can use while playing the hand drum the Djembe. The Djembe is a hand drum as I said this is its shape, it has a longer shaft down here which all your sound comes out of. What you want to avoid in playing the Djembe is playing it on the ground, although it will produce a sound it’s not going to resonate like you want it to…it’s kind of flat, it’s kind of muted and muffled. Now the reason is that the sound you’re producing by hitting the head is getting trapped and in this case in the carpet. So the first positioning you can use is having your feet out like this and just kind of raising and as you can notice I have two different colored socks which is wonderful, already with that base hit you can tell the sound is traveling out, it’s not getting caught in the carpet. Now this works if you’re sitting on a aluminum chair, if you’re sitting on a bench or you’re sitting on a couch, if you want to sit and play this is a good way to do it. Another way you can do it is holding it in your knees like this, it’s very comfortable, you can adjust it, it’s not going to muffle the sound at all, same thing, you can also have it on your lap like this, kind of secure it with one hand like that. Another technique for positioning would be to use this strap which is more times not going to come with your drum, strap just fits around your waist and this will be used while you’re standing, so you can kind of get around your waist while you’re sitting and it’s attached on one side to your tuning lug right here and you want to wrap it around your waist underneath the other tuning lug and this way it’s not going to fall, it’s sturdy and you can stand and play at the same time. And those are the positionings you can use for playing the Djembe.

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