h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Very well put.Seasonal rhythms,heartbeat,
tidel flow and dance.
I can't imagine a world without drumming.
As for the chicks,well,variety is the
spice of life, and you know what they say,
"If you've heard one drum solo
you've heard them both."

You mean there's *two* drum solos?

Dear Messrs. RandomThought and Elkmeister, a few thoughts for you both on drumming. Just how many drum solos or types of rhythm do you want?

Considder the West African Djembe alone, with just a few of its rhythms called:
Sabba (3 parts)
Kou Kou (4 parts)
Pan Logo (god knows how many parts)
Teriba (2 parts)
Soeli (3 parts)
Yanka Dee (3 parts)
Mandjani (I don't know how many parts)
Etc.

I can't remember how many other Djembe rhythms there are, probably over 100, and that may be a conservative estimate for all I know.

A particular hypothetical rhythm might have a number of parts, indicating that the rhythm needs as many drums and musicians as there are parts to be played. There may also be dedicated accompanying parts for one or two of each type of other native drum that may be in use in the culture that produced the hypothetical rhythm I am going on about.

That’s just thinking about the popular Djembe. Then there's another local West African drum called the Sabbar, with all of its own multi-part rhythms. It plays in a group of seven with a soloist who often plays two or three at the same time. Also in West Africa much the same can be said for the Talking Drum with its own styles and sets and so on. So that's just a few drum types from West Africa, there are loads more. But moving away from Africa altogether, there's Indian Tabla, with all of its own conventions, styles and individual rhythms. Also in India there’s the Dhol, along with many other types of Indian percussion.

Further round the world, there’s South Seas drumming and Japaneese Taiko (I think that's the spelling) and hundreds more circling the world many times. And that’s not stopping to mention Celtic drumming closer to home.

Then there’s Western popular music where the rhythms are simpler but there is still an enormous range of drum styles dictated by the type of music being accompanied. Modern electronic dance music, of just about all kinds, rely on the same multi-layer technique used in all ethnic drumming. Even the simplest bonk-chink, pop-music rhythms have complexity, but they get it from the breaks along with what the musician leaves out, rather than the intricacy of the basic rhythm itself.

Then there is probably an infinite number of creative improvisations that could also be listed, when thinking about describing solo's; for after all, even with all the combinations of the rhythms above, we’ve only considered the set pieces of the world!

But forget it, categorising solo's - its just too complex a task to begin to think about describing. There are even notations for drumming, but who can remember what they look like?

So RT & E, as I read your correspondence on drums and chicks - you strike me by your manner, that the sophistication of your insight into drumming - may be directly proportional to your experience of Chicks!

Heh,heh. Very good response.
A little more serious than the posts
you responded to tho.
But I did learn some new words.
I give you a nine.
As always, toss out the high
and low scores and average the rest.

I agree.

Iknow all about celtic drumming. I kind of thought we were talking about drum set playing, though...

Do you know what the African instrument that looks like a boat and has five strings coming out to a branch. I've got one, and I've seen one at Glastonbury

It sounds like it might be a Kora, but it is less like a boat as it is made out of a large gourd with a long straight neck attached to it. It has strings that project from the gourd, over a bridge, and on to the neck. These days the strigs are made out of fishing line rather than cat gut. However, I can't imagine how it could look like a boat so perhaps I am talking about something completely different.

I looks kind of like Noah's ark. The strings are vertically above each other. It's about a foot long and originally had (before I used guiter string) bicycle cable for strings. Grandad got it during service in WWII.