May 26, 1999
TC treated to West African Drum & dance
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Forget bang the drum slowly.
How about bang the drum with an eye-blurring, mind-numbing speed? Playing with such vitality and joy that the drummer's enthusiasm fills the room as much as the noise of the drum?
For master drummer Mbaye Gueye of Dakar, Senegal, drumming at the speed of light is just one of his many talents. A musician of great renown in his home country, Gueye came to Traverse City last weekend for a series of seminars and workshops in the area featuring West African drumming and dancing. He unexpectedly accompanied two other Senegalese musicians, master drummer Souleymane Ndiaye of Atlanta and master dancer Michel Mendy of Detroit, who were already scheduled to swing through town for the events.
The series of workshops were organized by Rod Russell, founder of One Drum, an evolving drumming group, promotion company and African drum building, sales and repair center. Russell was thrilled by Gueye's generous offer to come and immediately welcomed his participation in the workshops.
"I had never met Gueye before, but I studied with his brother in Senegal," said Russell, who spent three weeks in Senegal last year with the Gueye family, a family of master drummers and drum makers. "He offered to come, he paid his own way. He has given a lot of concerts in Rome, Paris and his wife is the number one singer in Senegal."
The three musicians treated twenty people to a demonstration of and instruction in traditional djembe drumming at the West African Drum and Dance Workshop and Circle Saturday night at the Unity Church. Novice drummers mixed with musicians who had years of experience at the workshop.
Gueye, Ndiaye and Mendy also held drumming workshops Thursday in Petoskey and Friday in Traverse City as well as a West African dance workshop Saturday in Lake Leelanau.
"It is nice to see them perform because it shows you what you can aspire to," said Dede Cronin, a city resident who has been hand drumming for a years. "Drumming like this is fun and brings everyone together, especially in here. The noise was so loud it makes your head ring and your vision blur."
The Senegalese musicians showed workshop participants the different hand techniques used to create the three sounds of the djembe. Speaking only French or Wolof, the language of their ethnic group, they also guided the students through two traditional West African drumming songs, led vocal call and response singing and demonstrated some dance steps.
After two hours of drumming together, workshop participants also realized that drumming is a matter of stamina and calluses, not just rhythm and technique.
"I learned that my hands are out of shape," said Thomas Wertz of Traverse City, who came to the workshop with his son, Brenin, who plays many percussion instruments including a djembe. "I also learned new basic African rhythms."
For Russell, the weekend was a wonderful chance to play with musicians of such caliber and bring other drummers in the area to learn the same style. A longtime musician, he practices West African drumming every day and plans to return to Senegal to continue studying drumming and drum making this year.
"If people walked into a room and saw a piano, a violin and a drum sitting there, most would pick up the drum and think they could play it," Russell said. "They have it in their mind that the drum is an instrument you just hit - anyone can play it. But like any other musical instrument, you have to practice to get good."