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Dennadon

On this page you will be introduced to an interesting rhythm, Dennadon, that will also introduce you to some basic patterns that you will find in many many other rhythms. This is a good rhythm to study as your firstproject, since it contains so many of the basics of all 4/4 rhythms.

Basic accompaniment"B"

About 70% of the well known 4/4 African rhythms contain the same two basic patterns or accompaniments. One is for the low djembe, one for the high djembe, although you can play both on any djembe of course. This is the low part:

I have called it part B because it starts with a bass. On the Djembe practice pages you will find it listed as one of the parts of the Balakulanya. If you first start to play, you should practice it with an extra bass in it to help you keep proper time: 
 

The reason for the extra bass is that many people tend to play the final slap too early. This will speed up the rhythm and confuse other people who DO play something on the first beat of the 2nd bar, since they will have too little time to play their bit. Chaos results. So practice the second line above, and then switch over to the real part by leaving out the second bass note. Make sure you can still HEAR the second bass note in your mind, and leave plenty of time for that! Think of the second bass as an echo that comes back to you from your second tone,and hear it in your mind.

If you play this part for a longer time, you should concentrate on forming the tones as well as you can because they add the drive to the rhytm. That is what notes do that lead up to the beat.

Basic accompaniment"S"

About 70% of the well known 4/4 African rhythms contain the same two basic patterns or accompaniments. One is for the low djembe, one for the high djembe, although you can play both on any djembe of course. This is the high part:

I called this part S because it starts with a slap. On the Djembe practice pages you will find it listed as one of the parts of the Balakulanya. If you first start to play, you should practice it with an extra bass in it to help you keep proper time: 
 

The reason for the extra bass is that many people tend to play the second slap too early. This will speed up the rhythm and confuse other people who DO play something on the second beat, since they will have too little time to play their bit. Chaos results. So practice the second line above, and then switch over to the real part by leaving out the bass note. Make sure you can still HEAR the bass note in your mind, and leave plenty of time for that!

If you play this part for a longer time, you can focus on two things. First is obviously to play a clear slap, but try to reduce the volume whilst keeping the slap clear. This demands a higher standard of technique. Secondly, without losing the slap clarity, concentrate on playing the tones properly, because they add the drive to the rhytm. That is what notes do that lead up to the beat.

Part B and part S form a combination where the driving tones in each bar are present and switch from one djembe to the next.

In a drum circle, pair off with 2 people next to each other, and play one rhythm each, and try and become 1 instrument together. Listen to the melodies that are created.

Basic bell 1 - "long"

All african djembe music consists of three bass drums with three bells and they play the actual melody of the rhythm. The djembe is an instrument for accompaniment, and for solo, but not for the main rhythmical melody. So the sooner you learn to play some doundoun and bell parts, and the sooner you play together with doundouns, the more you will enjoy the overall music!

There are some standard or frequently occurring bell patterns. It is a good idea to learn these, recognise them and play similar patterns on djembe. This one I call "long" because it starts with a long bell stroke.

You can fill in any sounds (bass, tone, slap) that you like of course. This will create a large amount of different rhythms that you can practice. You can select tones or slaps depending on the overall rhythm in a drum circle, or depending on which sounds or sound combinations you needto practice.

To practice, play a bass in the second bar so you will become accustomed to hearing that beat in your mind before you switch to the djembe examples without the bass note.

When you practice example 1, try to put an accent on the FIRST tone which is ON the beat for a few bars, and then try to put an accent on the SECOND tone which is off-beat for a few bars.

Basic bell 2 - "short"
All african djembe music consists of three bass drums with three bells and they play the actual melody of the rhythm. The djembe is an instrument for accompaniment, and for solo, but not for the main rhythmical melody. So the sooner you learn to play some doundoun and bell parts, and the sooner you play together with doundouns, the more you will enjoy the overall music!

There are some standard or frequently occurring bell patterns. It is a good idea to learn these, recognise them and play similar patterns on djembe. This one I call "short" because it starts with a short bell stroke.  
 

You can fill in any sounds (bass, tone, slap) that you like of course. This will create a large amount of different rhythms that you can practice. You can select tones or slaps depending on the overall rhythm in a drum circle, or depending on which sounds or sound combinations you need to practice.

The proper rhythm above is from the Dennadon. Many djembe rhythms consist of the basic parts B and S, and one special part that is specific to the rhythm (plus the full doundoun melody). The special part is sometimes called the main part, or the solo part or the solo accompaniment. Not to be confused with the real solo, which is usually a set of traditional solo patterns that accompany the traditional dance steps that belong to the rhythm.

The Dennadon combines the above part with part S, plus the doundouns. The sangban bell is bell 1, the doundounba bell is bell 2.

Dennadon

Below is the full transcript for the Dennadon rhythm. You will see that most elements discussed above are used here, and once you have mastered the four patterns above, learning the Dennadon will present no great problems.

Dennadon (4/4) is a Malinke-rhythm, from the Mandiana region. The dance is performed by girls who are lifted in the air sometimes. The song:
Annyè fölikè, yaya, Annyè fölikèdjembe folalu, Annyè fölikè yaya o ya-o-lala
Let's play, djembe-players let'splay, let's play yeah!
(From the WAP pages by Paul Nas)

Dennadon three douns

If you don't have any doundouns, you can create a djembe part of the most important doundounba and sangban elements. In this example the second half is part B with the extra bass. This shows that although in the traditional Dennadon part B is absent for djembe, the doundouns play that part.