My First African Drum Class

Soon after returning from the Bahamas I noticed an ad announcing an African drummer would be coming to town to hold class. I guessed that the Junkanoo might have African roots so I reserved a spot and borrowed a conga from my daughter's elementary school. I made it to the class and the instructor, Malik Sow from California, had the whole class drumming within 10 minutes. I found the instructions to be confusing but that didn't matter because I didn't want to learn, I just want to hear so I began faking my way through the class. Toward the end of class, we were put into pairs to play what we had learned...uh oh! I failed miserably.

It was at this class that I meet Stuart Dinwoodie who had a class at the college. I learn that he had an advanced class and after listening to them play and that their goal was to do a CD, I became involved.

William Dinwoodie, Crystal Bliss, Teina Lucas, Stuart Dinwoodie

We did the CD and debuted it at the Fine Arts Center with a show. I may try and put some of the recordings on a post if possible. This photo is of the Waa Sylla drummers. Waa means family and Sylla was the last name of the African teacher they went to Senegal to study under.

Cover art - Floyd Tunson, Red Dot Studios

My next post will be on D.tube and will be one of the rhythms from the show. The rhythm is called Kuku which is considered the newest rhythm coming out of West Africa. It's not quite one hundred years old. Many of the rhythms we play are real "oldie goldies".