Download [TOP] Yoruba Drum Beat

Yoruba music is the pattern/style of music practiced by the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. It is perhaps best known for its extremely advanced drumming tradition and techniques, especially using the gongon[1] hourglass shape tension drums. Yoruba folk music became perhaps the most prominent kind of West African music in Afro-Latin and Caribbean musical styles; it left an especially important influence on the music used in Santera[2] practice and the music of Cuba.[3]

Ensembles using the dundun play a type of music that is also called dundun.[5] These ensembles consist of various sizes of tension drums along with special band drums (ogido). The gangan[6] is another such. The leader of a dundun ensemble is the oniyalu who uses the drum to "talk" by imitating the tonality of Yoruba. Much of Yoruba music is spiritual in nature, and this form is often devoted to Orisas.[citation needed]

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The most commonly used key pattern, or guide pattern in traditional Yoruba drumming is the seven-stroke figure known in ethnomusicology as the standard pattern.[7][8][9] The standard pattern is expressed in both a triple-pulse (12/8 or 6/8) and a duple-pulse (4/4 or 2/2) structure.[10][11] The standard pattern is often sounded on an iron bell.

Yoruba music traditionally centred on folklore and spiritual/deity worship, utilising basic and natural instruments such as clapping of the hands. Playing music for a living was not something the Yorubas did and singers were referred to in a derogatory term of Alagbe,[citation needed]it is this derogation of musicians that made it not appeal to modern Yoruba at the time. Although, it is true that music genres like the highlife played by musicians like Rex Lawson, Ebenezer Obey Segun Bucknor, Bobby Benson, etc., Fela Kuti's Afrobeat[14] and King Sunny Ad's jj[15] are all Yoruba adaptations of foreign music. These musical genres have their roots in large metropolitan cities like Lagos, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt where people and culture mix influenced by their rich culture.

The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech.[1][2][3] It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to change the pitch of the drum by scraping the cords between their arm and body.

Five varieties of dndn pressure drums of the Yoruba and the atumpan and fontokkkkkmfrom of the Asante (Ashanti) are especially notable. They send messages up to 20 miles (32 km), where other drummers relay them, quickly spreading news.

Hourglass-shaped talking drums are some of the oldest instruments used by West African griots[7] and their history can be traced back to the Bono people, Yoruba people, the Ghana Empire[9][10] and the Hausa people. The Yoruba people of south western Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana have both developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum.[11] Many variants of the talking drums evolved, with most of them having the same construction mentioned above. Soon, many non-hourglass shapes showed up and were given special names, such as the Dunan and the Fontomfrom.[9] This construction is limited to within the contemporary borders of West Africa, with exceptions to this rule being northern Cameroon and western Chad; areas which have shared populations belonging to groups predominant in their bordering West African countries, such as the Kanuri, Djerma, Fulani and Hausa.

In Senegalese and Gambian history, the tama (in the Serer language) was one of the music instruments used in the Serer people's "Woooooong" tradition (the "dance performed by Serer boys yet to be circumcised" or the future circumcised, also known as the "Xaat" (in Serer).[6] The tama drum, has Serer religious connotations (which predates the Ghana Empire).[6] In the Xaat tradition, the tama makes up the fourth musical drum ensemble. The Serer drums played include: Perngel, Lamb, Qiin and Tama.[12]

Ayangalu is believed to have been the first Yoruba drummer. Upon his death he was deified, and so now he is counted among the ranks of the Orishas. It is believed by followers of the Yoruba religion that he is the patron spirit of all drummers, and that in the guise of a muse he inspires the drummers to play well. The word "Ayan" means drummer in the Yoruba language. This is why some Yoruba family names contain the prefix Ayan, such as Ayanbisi, Ayangbade, Ayantunde, Ayanwande etc. This prefix marks its bearers out as hereditary custodians of the mysteries of Ayangalu.

In the 20th century the talking drum became a part of popular music in West Africa. It is used in playing Mbalax music of Senegal and in Fuji and Jj music of Nigeria (where it is known as a dndn, not to be confused with the dundun bass drum of the Mand peoples).[17] The talking drum is also used in ceremonial functions and events like weddings, burial ceremonies, private functions and most importantly it is commonly used by African bands as part of their musical instruments.

The pitch of the drum is varied to mimic the tone patterns of speech. This is done by varying the tension placed on the drumhead: the opposing drum heads are connected by a common tension cord. The waist of the drum is held between the player's arm and ribs, so that when squeezed the drumhead is tightened, producing a higher note than when it is in its relaxed state; the pitch can be changed during a single beat, producing a warbling note. The drum can thus capture the pitch, volume, and rhythm of human speech, though not the qualities of vowels or consonants.[18]

The use of talking drums as a form of communication was noticed by Europeans in the first half of the 18th century. Detailed messages could be sent from one village to the next faster than could be carried by a person riding a horse. In the 19th century Roger T. Clarke, a missionary, realised that "the signals represent the tones of the syllables of conventional phrases of a traditional and highly poetic character."[19]

Many African languages are tonal; that is, the pitch is important in determining the meaning of a particular word.[20][21] The Yoruba language, for instance, has three principal tones, low, medium, and high, analogous to tonic sol-fa notes do, re, and mi; different inflections of the three tones are then used to convey different messages. The same plan of three principal tones and their inflections also applies to how the drum talks in Yoruba music and culture. However, the Serer language and its relative Senegambian languages are not tonal, unlike almost all other Niger-Congo languages.[22]

The message "Come back home" might be translated by the drummers as: "Make your feet come back the way they went, make your legs come back the way they went, plant your feet and your legs below, in the village which belongs to us".[24]

The extra phrases provide a context in which to make sense of the basic message or drum beats. These phrases could not be randomized, when learning to play the drum students were taught the particular phrase that coincided with each word. This reason alone made learning to talk in drum language very difficult and not many were willing to take the time to do so.[25] The extra drum beats reduce the ambiguity of the meaning. Ironically, when the West understood the mechanism of the drums, they had already begun to be used less often in Africa. Also, words often lost their meaning. In an interview with Carrington, he explained that when words that are not used often, the phrases that correspond to them are forgotten. When given the beat for young girl, the drummers thought the phrase played was in fact the one for fishing nets.[26]

As emphasized by Finnegan,[27] the messages sent via drums were not confined to utilitarian messages. Drum languages could also be used for specifically literary forms, for proverbs, panegyrics, historical poems, dirges, and in some cultures practically any kind of poetry. The ritualized forms and the drum names of particular individuals constituted a type of oral literature. Among some peoples such as the Ashanti or the Yoruba, drum language and literature were very highly developed. In these cultures, drumming tended to be a specialized and often hereditary activity, and expert drummers with a mastery of the accepted vocabulary of drum language and literature were often attached to a king's court.

The Tama of the Serer, Wolof and Mandinka peoples is typified by its smaller dimensions, having a total drum length typical of 13 centimetres (5.1 in) with a 7-centimetre (2.8 in) drum head diameter. This produces a much higher pitched tone than other talking drums of the same construction.

Playing styles are closely linked with the drum's construction and the tonal qualities of each language. There is a clear difference in playing styles between areas with predominantly Fulani and Mande-speaking populations and traditionally non-Mande areas further east.

In some ethnic groups, each individual was given a "drum name" which could be used direct messages to specific individuals. Examples from among the Bulu of Cameroon are "Even if you dress up finely, love is the only thing" or "The giant wood rat has no child, the house rat has no child". Talking drum players sent messages by drumming the recipient's name, followed by the sender's name and the message.[28]

The talking drum features prominently in the score of the 2018 film Black Panther. The score, composed by Ludwig Gransson, uses talking drums at the core of a leitmotif associated with the film's protagonist, T'Challa (played by Chadwick Boseman).[31]

ps (also ps) is the drum ensemble of the if priests (babalwo), which they play during the if festival (O n-If). The drums are also used at the burial rites of any of their members. The ps drum ensemble comprises of three drums, namely, ps, the largest in the set, which can be up to six feet tall. Afr, next to ps in size, is about three feet tall but is wider than ps, and nally rn, the smallest in the set. Other musical instrument in the set used with the three drums is the iron gong/bell (agogo). Just like gbn drums, ps are upright open-ended log drums with single leather heads fastened and tuned by wooden pegs. ps, the largest drum in the ps ensemble, is played with a single unshaped stick and the palm, while the two smaller drums (afr and rn) are played with two unshaped sticks. 17dc91bb1f