jojo‘s Mixtape- Drum Along!
This week’s mix contains African tracks, selected for their captivating groove and rhythm elements. I drum along to these tracks to practice djembe, sing along, and dance around. The key ingredient is the pulsing repetition that draws us to move or express, the patterns we hear that repeat and invite us to contribute our voices.
Communal drumming has always fascinated me, surely because I didn’t grow up in a place where it was a custom. I began drumming in school as a child, but I can remember specifically when I first experienced the magic of a drum circle. While in high school, I had a music teacher who brought in his djembe and began adding this element to our regular snare drum/concert percussion regimen. He and I planned to jam a bit during a lunch period, so we got a large music room, shut the door, and turned off the lights. We began tapping out rhythms and ideas, repeating each other, calling and responding, cueing different dynamics, and GOT LOST IN IT. Somewhere in this session, everything aligned and became an action being driven by a different part of the mind, if you will.
