TAKO SABA

I wanted to share something I learned at some workshops given here in St. Louis by Tam Tam Mandingue. The event was organized by list member Annie Burks and Amankwah Center for Pan-African Arts. The festival, BTW, was a wonderful series of dancing and drumming events lasting three days. There were guest artists from East and West Africa as well Tam Tam Mandingue USA. Keep your eye out for Amankwah's AfricaFete St. Louis next year! It's definitely worth a trip here!

Okay, here's what I learned. We were learning "Tako Saba," a version of Dounoumba. It has the classic Dounoumba parts:

Now I always have difficulty holding down the kenkeni part, especially with its bell part. I usually tap my foot on the "slaps" of the djembe part. That's once every three pulses (once every three eighth notes). That defines the beat scheme as what we might call in Western musical traditions as a 12/8 (4 groups of triplets) time signature. Mahiri (the instructor at the workshop) steps on the same beats I do, and that's the way Mamady Keita teaches it as well.

The sangban part to Tako Saba is five measures long in 12/8 -- very much longer and more complex than, say, the sangban part to Soli Rapide (which is only one measure long). Put another way, Tako Saba cycles once every 60 pulses, while Soli cycles once every 12. Long story short: it's a hard part to play right off the bat!

Mahiri played it and stepped on the triplet pulses. Then he asked Moustapha Bangoura, a dancer from Guinea, and his dununba player Ali to lay down the part. When the Guineans played the part, they stepped once every *6* pulses, not once every *3* pulses. That means (I believe) that they are sensing the beat scheme as:

As Da Heart would say, it's about playing, not about theory. It turns out, by stepping on the triplets, I was theorizing myself out of the rhythm. (Obviously, there is a "dance step" that helps locate you in the rhythm, but when I have no dancers present to help locate the drumming, I keep time with my foot). That step is really only a theory anyway, not truly part of the rhythm. But stepping on some pulses can make playing a part easier or harder. My observation of the Guineans opened up for me a new way to liberate my playing from my internal theorizing. What I mean is, I learned a way to help myself groove better! As an side, I wonder about the difference between Mamady stepping on the triplets and Moustapha stepping on the double triplets. Is it personal taste? Is Mamady presenting the rhythms in a way that he finds we non-Africans grasp more readily? That, of course, is another theoretical question! ;-) I hope you find this new step pattern as helpful as I did.

I have noticed this as well, in the long journey of hearing, playing and perceiving the Dununba rhythms correctly. What it all comes back to, in my opinion, is 2 against 3, a fundamental of African music. At the beginning of the year, my teacher, Yaya Kabo, spent a good month and a half on a couple of different Dununbas, and when marking the pulse, most of the time he marked the 3 pulse and not the 2 (4) pulse. In "6/8" or "12/8" rhythms, parts that seem off-beat against a 2 (4) pulse may well be on-beat against a 3 pulse. (I'm thinking of the sangba part for Bandon Djei, for example.) The caveat is, you have to be absolutely rock solid in hearing, playing and perceiving 2 against 3 for this to be of any help. If you're relating to 2 and another player is relating to 3, what you perceive has to be locked up tight and in the right way with the other guy, or you've just replaced one problem with another.

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad to hear a reflection of my perception. I'm also glad that you clarified this as a 3:2 relationship. <<The caveat is, you have to be absolutely rock solid in hearing, playing and perceiving 2 against 3 for this to be of any help. If you're relating to 2 and another player is relating to 3, what you perceive has to be locked up tight and in the right way with the other guy, or you've just replaced one problem with another.>> I think part of what I'm sensing is the _implication_ of 3 against 2. Straight 3 against 2 is easy to hear (still challenging to play), but most of the time in these rhythms we're hearing only *part* of the polyrhythm expressed explicitly. The relationship is implied more often, as with the interplay of sangban and dununba parts in Dounoumba.

A very challenging exercise in this kind of "implied polyrhythm" is playing a duple eighth note ride against the 6/8 bell:

Without a doubt, Jim, the 3 against 2 is a form we all need to keep practicing until it becomes second nature. It's to West African drumming what the paradiddle is to Western drumset players.