Last night’s rehearsal with the dancers went pretty well. The agenda for the troupe overall was to work on transitions, both how and when. We needed to figure out some sort of cues, or timing, to know when to change our beat and tempo. Ironically, especially after how productive our last few rehearsals have been, […]
Archive for August 2009
Rehearsal: August 26, 2009
August 27, 2009Tuning a Doumbek
August 24, 2009I often see new drummers that are playing a doumbek that has a buzz within the doum, or has too much ring in its teks, or sounds muffled somehow. The drummer gets frustrated, because no matter how hard they practice, they cannot get anywhere near the same sounds as that guy online, or the instructor, […]
Gig: August 22, 2009
August 22, 2009Had a quick gig at a student Hafla at one of the local community colleges. Essentially, a Hafla is a party thrown for dancers, by dancers. There is usually some kind of food, typically pot luck kind of stuff with Middle-Eastern dishes (hummus, stuffed grape leaves, pita, cheeses, fruit, yummies!). There is always dancers and […]
Rehearsal: August 19, 2009
August 20, 2009Last night was a very productive rehearsal. We started with a basic rhythm exercise, as I wrote about last week, where we simply played a 4/4 mix with this progression: Phrase 1: Beledi (three times) Nawari (one time) Phrase 2: Maqsum (three times) Nawari (one time) Phrase 3: Saiidi (three times) Nawari (one time) Phrase […]
Buying a new doumbek
August 15, 2009I can tell that you are thinking about buying a doumbek. Sweet! Here are a few tips so that you can be happy with the new drum! Avoid buying any drum without playing THAT drum. First and foremost, do your absolute best to buy only those drums that you have actually held in your hands […]
