YANKADI - in Guinea - Fatou Abou with "Dr. Lee"

THANK YOU THANK YOU
 to "Docta Lee" for posting this video!



     It looks like Fatou Abou taught 'the Good Doctor' a Yankadi arrangement very similar to the one he taught a friend of mine in the U.S. in 2000 during the WOFA tour.  The patterns taught stateside were, in a very few cases, ever so slightly simplified versus the Guinean ones.  So it is super helpful to have this great video of Dr. Lee's.  He posted a second lessson video from Guinea, too!  I'll address that one in a later post...





A number of authors (books & also internet) have published rhythm transcriptions represented in typed and/or monofaced format.  Having read very many of these, ever since the 1990's online, and actually dating back at least into the 1970's via scholarly journals, I find them mutually intelligible.  All of them have been influenced by "music notation."  Within the sphere of *World Music,* and more specifically trans-Atlantic ("Black African and Diaspora") drumming, the hybrid notation systems continue to influence transcriptions in all other notation systems, both traditional and modern.  If my own transcription choices are unclear, this portal should lead to more detailed explanation(s) of both the underlying, basic and agreed-upon system(s), as well as my occasionally unique applications of these traditions...  And now -- whew -- without further ado...





0:22  ---   First support djembe. 

     Abou starts the rhythm, plays a few lead licks, and then settles into this rhythm.  As the camera pans over to Dr. Lee, Abou can be heard switching back to lead licks.  Dr. Lee is playing a pattern identical with the "first djembe" as taught in El Paso.  The El Paso version, however, used different handing.  It began either on the right or left hand (Abou said it didn't matter) and alternated throughout.  With twelve strokes in all, the complete pattern doesn't switch hands every other repetition, as does the "second support djembe" taught in El Paso.

0:30  ---   Second support djembe. 


     He's "riding" what could be called a basic shuffle rhythm: 

123123123123
O.OO.OO.OO.O

Note that the right hand is on the beat, and that the left hand's hit prepares the right hand's hit.  Call & response.

     In order to make a more melodic and beautiful rhythm, of course nobody is playing a basic shuffle beat, but is adding to the skeletal framework.  There is additional melodic and rhythmic detail.  Note that the left hand delicately muffles the right hand's slap.  I used the "y" symbol -- it seemed appropriate.  That would be "and," in Spanish.

     1ea 2ea 3ea 4ea
     --- --- --- ---
     B.y S.B B.O O.B
     r   r   r   r  
       l   l   l   l

     The Guinea version is slightly different from the handing taught to my friend from El Paso.  In that case, it was taught using an open slap:

     1ea 2ea 3ea 4ea
     --- --- --- ---
     B   S B B O O B

What about the handing?  Well, playing the complete cycle requires 7 strokes, and Abou was very clear that he wanted his student to alternate hands, throughout.  This would mean playing the drum pattern twice before coming back to the beginning of the handing cycle.  Abou said it didn't matter whether one started with the right or left hand.  In any case, this is a great technique for practicing one's timing and "chop," no?


     You sometimes see the pattern played like this, too.  This is a third version.  Notice there is no slap:

     1ea 2ea 3ea 4ea
     --- --- --- ---
     B     B B O O B

     r     l r l r l

Notice that for all three versions:

     *******       whereas the slap might be open, muffled,
                      or not there at all...

     *******       a characteristic Yankadi melody of
                     "double bass to double tone to double bass"
                     is always there...

     A fourth version  can be added to this list: it was one of two Yankadi support djembe patterns taught by the late, great Kemoko Sano.  For close to 30 years, he was director and choreographer for Les Ballets Africains.  As he told me, once when I mentioned Mamady Keita, "I taught Mamady Keita."

     Sano's drum pattern, not surprisingly, produces the characteristic Yankadi melody.  His Yankadi has the same melodic contour as the other versions, and also it has the same motor pattern of left-to-right handing.  Clearly, it is related to the "third version" just discussed.  In both instances, the same melody is produced via the same strokes: double bass, to double opens, to double bass.  The last bass stroke is one the ONE, which is in keeping with the characteristic West African musical aesthetic of building toward the one.  By resolving onto the ONE of the subsequent cycle, a powerful form of rhythmic motion is generated.  According to my most trustworthy of sources, this ubiquitous compositional technique relates to West African spirituality and to concepts of human reincarnation.

     The "interplay of 2's vs. 3's" also will be a key theme when comparing many of the Yankadi djembe patterns.  To have found identical second djembe patterns in two different time signatures (Sano's and also the previous, or 'third' version of the pattern) will not seem unusual.  In many more instances, cognate versions exist in both duple and ternary textures.  

     The discussion of this "second support djembe pattern" has been quite lengthy, since this pattern encapsulates an important and characteristic Yankadi melody.  Several of the djembes and both of the bass drums work with this melody.  The bottom two djembes add counterpoint, while the lead djembe interacts with dancers and/or singers.  Additional examples of the characteristic melody will be found here.

0:44  ---   Third support djembe. 


     Again, this drummer is riding on that basic underlying "shuffle" feel.  I'm using an Americanized word that at least gives some indication of the African aesthetic reality.  Of course its only "the finger pointing at the moon," and could be more limiting than revealing, at times.

     The pattern fits like lock and key with the pattern which preceded it.  The open tones between drums combine to reproduce the characteristic Yankadi melody already mentioned: basically, just an onbeat low-to-high-to-low, resolving onto the ONE, and all placed within a shuffle or even a *swing* feel...  How delightful!

     1ea 2ea 3ea 4ea
     --- --- --- ---
     O t t o o t t o

     I didn't write the handing: its still the same left-to-right shuffle feel.  It moves and dances between the left hand's syncopated question... and... a resolution of this tension via the right hand's onbeat response.  He's using very light, ghosted t(ouch) strokes in addition to the open tones.

     In El Paso, Abou taught this rhythm as being in a strict duple, not triple (read: "shuffle" or "swing," etc.) feel.  This is a statement you can be sure of.  Why?  Because the class required substantial repetition and clarification on this point.  None were accustomed to hearing such intricate "interplay of 2's and 3's." (...Like "Call & Response," this term refers also to multiple levels of meaning and application...)  The version from El Paso, though using a different underlying rhythmic texture, still keeps the underlying motor pattern intact: left hand precedes right hand, and the right is on the beat.  We already saw this exact process at, courtesy of Kemoko Sano's pattern for second djembe.


0:56  ---   Fourth support djembe. 


     This Guinea version has the same melodic concept as the delightful and unusual(?) fourth djembe pattern taught in El Paso.  Details of the handing are slightly different, however.  If you are comparing to the notated music from Abou's El Paso session, the video's drummer comes into view during the fourth bar, and then very quickly goes into the roll that comprises the fifth bar.  He's not on camera for very long.  During the middle of his pattern's first bar, the camera moves to the next player.

     The overall form of the fourth djembe pattern is AAB.  This won't be difficult to remember, since a lot of people know it already from blues verse form.  Two identical calls are followed by a single unique response.  This complicates the notation, since "B" already is getting used to represent a bass djembe stroke.  Sorry, this is unavoidable and may cause confusion when skimming the analysis.  Within each phrase of either "A" or "B," there is also call and response between an active bar and a "waiting" bar of purely onbeat bass.

     Here is how the hands distribute the various notes while playing the pattern.  As taught in El Paso, and available in notation here, the left hand always hits the bass, and never the right hand.  The right hand hits the open tones and muffled slaps from the (identical) first and third bars.  In other words, most of the time the left hand is in the drum's center and the right is at the rim -- very easy!  The fifth bar's 9-stroke roll of open tones is played beginning on the right hand and alternating.  This is followed by a slap flam, which in this example is most easily played left-to-right.

     Abou's Guinean version seems to fit within the shuffle feel, rather than El Paso's use of duple for all but the "B' section. This seems consistent with Abou's Guinean version being more entirely in a shuffle/swing feel, versus the sparkling "interplay of 2 vs. 3" from the El Paso version's mixture of ternary with duple.

 

1:04  ---   Fifth support djembe. 


     Very similar to the pattern as taught in El Paso.  On video, the bass tones are a bit more active, but the open tones are identical.  In both arrangements, the open tones are handed in the same way.  The left hand is hitting open tones on the first and second beats, while the right hand plays three syncopated open tones.  In the Guinea arrangement, this seems to be one of the few patterns played "straight duple."  For all other patterns: whatever was taught "straight duple" in El Paso was played as shuffle/swing in Guinea.  You hope you will listen to the audio and verify this, for yourself.


  ...The sangban player's left hand is beginning to come into view, but you don't get a good close-ups of the drum until...




1:21  ---   Sangban. 

     Wow, nice pattern!  What about the all-by-itself bounced drumskin stroke that is usually played to coincide with the slap from the second djembe?  In this instance, Sangban is delaying, retarding, hesitating a little bit, right?  As a friend used to say: DEEP POCKET!  Wow, what a great touch.  This seems to be more than just a little show-off thing for the camera closeup.  I hear him playing it that way throughout the video.  Once again, this is a pattern played in shuffle feel vs. the clearly duple version from El Paso.  The Guinean Sangban transcription is below, and has been written so that conversation with Dundun is more clear.

1:31  ---   Dundun. 


     Note that the dundun is played upright: two sticks on the drumhead, but no bell.  With this type of arrangement, you usually see the drummer also playing click strokes: both sticks striking in unison, hitting against the wooden side of the drum. This drummer is doing all of that, in addition to some fancy and flashy visual effects.  Throwing and catching the stick communicates his joy, at least for this viewer.

     Notice that Dundun and Sangban combine to form a recognizable variant on the **characteristic Yankadi melody** previously discussed vis-a-vis the second support djembe.  Further examples of this melody, played among three rather than two members of the Dundun family, can be found here.

     For this musical example, I've used "S" for open tones on Sangban and "D" for the Dundun's drumhead strokes.  The "P" indicates lightly pressing the stick into the Sangban's drum skin.  I notated Sangban's delayed hit, just as its played during the ten-second close-up beginning at 1:21.  Visually, the typed notation of this music seemed a little bit bare, so I added "." just to indicate silent pulses.  They don't indicate any kind of stroke from either player.

     1ea 2ea 3ea 4ea
     --- --- --- ---
     P.. .S. p.S S..    <-- This is Sangban

     D.. ..D D.. ..D     <- and this is Dundun!


     As for the Dundun's stick clicks, the video shows that they seem to occur concurrent with the Sangban's open drumhead strokes.  Thus, the two drums are playing mirror images of each other's sonic output.  For example, when Dundun is hitting the drum and bouncing the stick(s), Sangban is playing a higher-pitched and understated press stroke.  When Sangban is hitting the skin and bouncing the stick, Dundun is hitting the stick clicks on its wooden body.  This "call and response" interlock (combined hocket melody technique) already has been noted at various various junctures within the overall ensemble melody interactions.  It is especially explicit in the pattern of the second support djembe, a highly melodic pattern which in fact calls to and responds to itself!




and don't forget FATOU ABOU as "soliste!" 

     Abou's lead playing -- WOW!  He's so profound.  In addition to taking more time further to analyze the ensemble patterns, I'm going to listen to Abou's soloing, but in a new and deeper way.  Hopefully I can grasp a few specifics, and then post & share the knowledge.  The ultimate goal is to elicit feedback & ideas, and (if I'm lucky) get some additional help and greater insight into Abou's masterful art.