This site is dedicated to West African drumming rhythms and
percussion music from Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea and
particularly rhythms associated with Djembe, Sabar, and Kpanlogo drums. The aim
is to be mainly educational and mostly informative.
This website was originally created by Shahab Azar, a master drummer. Sadly, Shahab died in late 2009 after a long illness. In his memory we are continuing to maintain this website which includes many of the rhythms that he taught in his regular classes and lovingly recorded for use on this website. Please bear with us while we update the website and review the functionality.
We are being helped in this by the owners of short term car insurance website cigala.co.uk. This insurance site provides temporary car insurance cover for from a single day up to 3 months. Please click here if you want to insure a car for a short term.
Please note that our online shop and members areas are not currently active. Thank you.
On this website you will find Rhythm pages which are
suitable for beginners and pattern hunters. This section currently contains 23
rhythms with notations, accompanying tracks and drumming video
clips.
Those who are interested in developing their drumming
vocabulary further, can do so by on-line subscription to our unique and comprehensive
Members Area , which contains substantial audio/visual
representation through use of notations, audio tracks, video clips and provides
additional information on all sections of each rhythm not included within the
public area of this site.
Furthermore in Members Area you can find information on
history of some of the drum rhythms and live recordings of African Music
performed in villages of Senegal and Gambia. We also intend to add new sections
to this area dealing with playing Sabar and Balafon.
You may also find the drum related information in the
following sections useful:
-
Listings for drumming teachers in UK
: : USA : :
Canada : :
Australia
- Lists of Drumming Events and
regular weekly drum Circles, Groups &
Workshops
-
Photo Gallery containing images from Senegal &
Gambia
- Discussion Forum which provides a platform for expressing
your opinions or posting your questions regarding drumming
matters.
- Information on Drum-makers
- MP3 page which includes short samples of live recordings
available from the Members Area and links to other African music
sites.
- The Shop , where you can purchase teaching CDs, Artist
CDs, Rhythm Notations, Drums and Books on-line.
- Links to other relevant drumming sites on the
net.
- Auctions
This is a new addition to the site and is geared towards musical instruments,
however other items can be included and a standard auction is completely
free.
We have also included .wav files and
MP3 tracks on some pages so depending
on your browser they might be played automatically or a console will be
displayed so that you can play the rhythm manually, or both subject to having
the right plug-ins. Please be patient as some of these files are quite large
and might take some time to download.
To take full advantage of what is available on this site you
need to have at least one of the following installed : :
Windows Media Player
: : RealOne
Player : : QuickTime : :
Winamp player : : and in some cases :
: Macromedia Flash player. You can download the free versions
by clicking on the links above .
Hope you have fun!
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