Djembe Drum Playing Technique

Video Transcript

Hello there my name is Aaron Moon and I’m here today on behalf of expertvillage.com. I’ll be discussing a few different techniques in using and playing the hand drum the Djembe. First you want to be comfortable you don’t want to be stiff. The Djembe is a fun very expressive instrument, so you want to be comfortable. You want have the drum close to you, I’ve already illustrated different ways to hold and different ways to position the drum and right now I’d just like to talk about some technique. So since the drum is close to you your arms are going to be bent, they’re not going to be straight, you’re wrists are going to be bent you’re not going to be straight and surprise, surprise your fingers are going to be the same way. It doesn’t make much sense to have your arms straight out and your fingers straight out and have them be rigged, so I’ll just play a little kind of demonstrating that and you just want to be loose, you want to feel free with the drum so here it goes. With my arms at this angle you can approach the drum different ways, you can produce different sounds because you’re relaxed and because you can move freely. Some different techniques you can use on the drum you can have a rim hit which is basically just taking this portion of your hand right here, your fingers rather which are part of the hand and you’re just going to want to hit on the side of the drum right here you’re almost slapping it, it doesn’t hurt. If you’re new to the Djembe your fingers might be a little sore they might get a little callous and that’s normal and if you’re playing a lot you might want to monitor how much you’re playing so you don’t get horrible blisters. But that’s kind of a rim hit for the Djembe…fingers very loose basically just bouncing off the drum.

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