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| Remarkable tuning system... - Other Instruments - Other Instruments - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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Philj200 Approved 
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I recently attended an African Hertitage event at Phillipsburg Manor, in Sleepy Hollow, NY. The Manor is a Dutch (New Amsterdam era) farm, grist mill and heritage crafts (cooperage, blacksmithy, and others). They were doing a retrospective on slavery in New Holland. Most of the slaves were first and second generation Africans and the attitude of the Dutch was very different from that of the post colonial era. I.E. the slaves were not treated as background characters out of Uncle Tom's Cabin or Birth of a Nation. African folkways seemed to be tolerated and allowed to cross-fertilize in the New World. There were cooking, crafts and lots of music based on the epoch; And one of the drummers caught my eye. He was playing a large djembe. This is a vaguely hour-glass shapped drum. They come in many sizes. His was about three feet from top to bottom with what looked to be about a 15" drum head. While there were many djembes there that day, this one was singularly different. The skin was set into the inside of the drum shell rather than outside and fashened externally. This allowed an open ring, much like a banjo resonator around the skin. This boosted volume noticable as he moved the drum around. The sound would come at you like a spotlight. Get's more intersting: The drummer had inserted three metal plates (hopefully the diagram shows up) that were rounded on top and had a long lip off the ottom. Around the edges of the exposed part were iron rings. He would tap the tdrum, the rings would sizzle and the tone would seem to sustain for a longish time. He could vary the tone by raising or lowering the plates deeper or shallower into the drum. This produces an endless variety of tone. By dancing into and out of the sun, the plates would catch, heat up and radiate inside the drum, causing the skin to tighern (and the pitch to change) and by dances back into the shade, the heat would disiapate and the tone would lower. The plates as I learned, are called "zissos." Or something close. My Benin is quite wretched. The drummer said that djembes equipped for zissos were soloist drums because their sound would carry further and be more distinct than others. I saw and heard him. And he was right. Attachment: zisso.jpg (Downloaded 16 times) Last edited on Wed May 30th, 2007 03:55 pm by Philj200 ____________________ My MP3 Section: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1143/ My Myspace area: http://myspace.com/philj200 |
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| ezFolk Forums > Other Instruments > Other Instruments > Remarkable tuning system... | |
