How To Play the African Drums

Although there are many different drums from Africa; the one that is most commonly played is named the djembe drum.  The djembe is usually made from a hollowed out trunk of a tree while the top of the drum, the 'drum-head,' is made from animal skins, traditionally goatskin.  The basic idea of how to play a djembe drum is that you hit the top of the drum in three different ways to produce three different sounds: the bass sound, the tone sound, and the slap sound.  After you hit the top of the drum the sound vibrates through the drum and travels out the bottom.  This is an important point to remember because if you obstruct the pathway for the sound, the bottom of the drum, then you won't get the sound you wanted.

The first thing you want to do when beginning to play your African drum is to take the drum, set it between your legs in front of you, and then making sure to use both hands, tip it away from you.  One side of the base of the drum should still be on the floor, the side that is opposite you.  Hold up the drum in that position by using your knees. This allows you to use both hands for drumming and also allows the sound to travel out of the bottom of the drum.

Now for the sounds.  First there is the bass sound.  This will produce the lowest sound and helps to give a foundation to the music that you are playing.  To play this, straighten your fingers and wrist, then strike the drum in the middle.  With this and all the other types of hits, you want your hands to 'bounce' off quickly or rebound off the drum head.  This allows the drum to reverberate more, therefore giving you a nice sound.

The next sound is the tone sound.  The tone sound is higher than the bass sound, but not as high as a slap.  Take your fingers and hold them together.  Then take the tops of your 'second set of knuckles' and hit them in the same way as the bass sound but closer to the rim.

Then the slap is probably the easiest of them all.  This time you want to relax your fingers and then just hit the rim of your drum with your hand.  It is important to learn to play these sounds with both hands.