Web 2.0 Awards

Music fan that I am, I headed over to Last.fm and was duly impressed: the most obscure artists I could think of were all listed, and the tags people have come up with to link similar musicians were right on. My favorite was Wicked Women. :P

This site might be useful in helping library patrons find artists that are similar to ones that they know and love. (What should I listen to next?) To get the full benefit of the site, it's obviously best to be able to hear the music clips and videos, but even just reading about the artists can be informative.

by popular demand.... TAIKO DRUMS!

If you should happen across these drums at a drum circle, you should consider yourself very lucky (and you should call me on my cell phone right away). Taiko drums originated in Japan over 2000 years ago. The drums were reputedly first used in battle to intimidate the enemy, and by the 1500's, the drums were used to coordinate troop movements on the battlefield, since they were easy to hear across the entire field. The type of taiko ensemble playing that we're familiar with today didn't begin until the 1950's, when jazz drummer Daihachi Oguchi rewrote a classic taiko piece for a group of different-sized (and different-voiced) drums.

Taiko is the Japanese word for drum. The word becomes "daiko" when it is used in combination with another word to describe a drum further. The shime daiko is littlest; it has a natural hide skin that is pulled super tight with ropes. The larger chu daiko and o-daiko are shaped like barrels. Their skins are tacked down and cannot be tuned. O-daiko drums are the largest, and can have heads up to six feet in diameter. (!)

I was fortunate enough to study taiko with Elaine Fong and Junko Kobayashi from Odaiko New England at a workshop in New York state the same year that this video was filmed. Both women are amazingly talented, and they are sweet, gifted teachers. This is far and away my favorite type of drumming to do, because the whole body is involved. It's really a combination of drumming and dancing, with the focus and intensity of martial arts thrown in.


Check out Junko's solo! She even drops a stick and doesn't miss a beat!



If you just can't get enough, here is some extended footage of guys playing the big drums. Their style of drumming is more reminiscent of the drum's role on the battlefield.

Frame Drums: not the new kid on the block

A frame drum is a shallow drum; its width is greater than its depth. It is generally made from a hoop of wood. The head of the drum can be made from a synthetic material or from an animal hide, such as deerskin or calf. The drum may have one head or two, and it may have metal jangles on the hoop. Some animal skin drums have a metal tuning system; others have a rope that is attached to the skin that may be pulled tighter. Some frame drums are made to be played with mallets or sticks, and others are played with the fingers. Different cultures have different names for their frame drums. It's a bodhran in Ireland, a tar in Africa, a riq in Arabic countries, and a tambourine in the USA and Europe.


This type of drum has been around for a long time. A priestess playing a frame drum is featured in a painting found in modern day Turkey that dates back to 5600 B.C. Frame drums were played mainly by women in the ancient Middle East, Rome and Greece. To learn more about the fascinating history of frame drums and the women who played them, check out the book When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm, by Layne Redmond. These drums are still used frequently in shamanic ritual, as they are great for creating a trancelike energy.



If you'd like to see two guys having fun with a totally different type of frame drumming, check out this video.

Wow!

I found this photo by trolling around Creative Commons per Sarah Easley's suggestion. Just wait til we talk about taiko drums! :)

Doumbek, Darbuka, or Darabuka, the drum sounds the same

Like our previously featured drum, the djembe, the doumbek is a drum that is very likely to turn up at a drum circle. This is also the drum you'll see at bellydance performances. Doumbeks hail from the Middle East. They are goblet shaped, similar to the djembe, but they are much smaller. The body of the drum is either metal or ceramic. A metal drum typically has a mylar head, making for a rugged drum that can stand up to all weather conditions and seldom needs tuning. A ceramic drum generally has a skin head, made from goat, calf, or fish.


Doumbeks are played differently than djembes. Both drums are played with the hands, but a doumbek player uses mostly the fingertips rather than the entire palm.


To complicate your drum identification a little further, some folks call doumbeks "darbukas" (or darabukas). As far as I can tell, these names are used pretty interchangeably, and I've run across several drum dealers that have made it clear that they are referring to the same type of drum no matter which name they choose to use. If you know more about this, let me know!

Drum of the Week

Too frequently, I've read local journalists' reports of drum circles or other community gatherings that included drumming, and the writer reports that the drummers were banging on bongos. Maybe the alliteration is supposed to be clever, but this makes me cringe. So I'm taking it upon myself to do a little drum education.

Bongos are not the only type of hand drums out there. In fact, bongos are a pretty rare sight at drum circles. So each week, I'll feature a different type of drum that is likely to show up at a community drum gathering. Bongos will be included eventually. :P Take the drum challenge and read on, and you'll astonish your friends next time you pass a group of drummers at the park and you can point out all of the different types of drums by name!



It seems just and right to feature the DJEMBE first, as this truly is the drum most frequently seen at drum gatherings. The djembe is a goblet shaped drum that originated in Africa. The drum's body is sometimes made of synthetic materials, but traditional djembes have a wooden shell. The type of wood varies according to where the drum is made. The drumhead is typically made of goatskin, but a drum with a synthetic body will most likely have a synthetic head as well. It's the goatskin that gives the drum its characteristic firey sound.



Synthetic drums may have metal clamps for tuning (as in the tiny djembe photo above), or there may be no tuning option at all. Traditional wooden djembes use a rope tuning system. There are metal rings that hold the drumskin in place, and these rings are pulled down by tightening the ropes. This pulls the skin tighter and raises the pitch of the djembe's sound. If you'd like to see how it's done, check out this video my girlfriend produced...



Drums are my passion, so I could go on and on. If you have any djembe questions, just let me know! And stay tuned for the next Drum of the Week!

Lifelong Learning

I recently began taking mandolin lessons after years of playing by ear and with the aid of some Indigo Girls songbooks. I'm learning some specific old time bluegrass tunes, but I'm also figuring out some things about myself.

1. It is a huge challenge to learn in a new way. I had an insane amount of resistance to teaching myself a previously unknown (to me) song by reading tabulature instead of listening to a recording or having someone show me how to play it. Two weeks went by, with me glaring at the written music every so often and saying, "No! I can't learn this way!!" Well, it turns out I can. It's just harder than I would like it to be.

2. I will probably never be one of those people who thinks they are too old to learn something new. I can't imagine running out of things I'd love to learn more about. This sometimes makes setting a specific goal a challenge. What about all the other things I want to pursue? What about all the other songs in this folder??

3. I often forget about the resources that are out there. I don't have to do it all alone.

4. It is much more fun to learn (and PLAY) with company. :)