Anatomy of a Djembe
Anatomy of a Djembe: Vocabulary
Bearing Edge: At the very top of the drum shell, the skin on top curves down over the wood of the shell to wrap under both the crown and flesh rings, and then wraps the flesh ring and back inside and then over the Crown Ring. This is the main part of the drum your hand strikes when playing.
Bowl: The part of the Djembe that curves down from the top bearing edge to the narrower part of the Djembe where the Bottom Ring rests.
Cradle Loops: These are loops of rope knotted around the Cradle Ring on top and on the Bottom Ring on the bottom. They must match in number, and are used to lace the Vertical Rope through when mounting and tensioning the head.
Crown Ring: The ring right above the flesh ring, onto which the cradles are tied.
Flesh Ring: The lower of the top rings, which the rawhide head wraps completely around.
Head: The top of the drum, Consisting of a tensioned rawhide goat, antelope, cow, or other animal skin.
Stem: Where the bowl ends, the drum continues down to the ground, often in a flare; this is referred to as the Stem. It typically gets larger as it approaches the floor. Older drums had much less of a flare, or even were occasionally cylindrical.
Verticals: The long rope that laces up and down through the cradle loops on the bottom and top rings. This usually takes 70–90 feet of rope, ideally 4–6 millimeters thick and prestretched.
Maintaining your drum is a therapeutic opportunity. To begin with, it’s an example of respect, both for the drum and the culture that it’s derived from. It transforms it from an object that is merely used to an instrument that one can develop a caring relationship with.
How to Evaluate Drums
Here are some skills to keep drums looking and sounding good.
The way that the drums look and sound makes a difference in your students’ experience with them and sets their expectations for what you are doing in important ways.
First of all, they need to look good. Their extra rope needs to be wrapped and tucked nearly, and this must be addressed the minute that it isn’t. The handles need to be neat. Overall, their appearance needs to make the statement that these instruments are important and even sacred. This communicates that they are to be treated with respect, and also a way of communicating to yourself tha you are worthy to play on real, good quality instruments.
The drums need to sound good as well. When you put your thumb on the head and push down, there should be very little flex. When a Ton or a Slap is played on them, the sound should be dry and clean. There should be little or no “ringy” sound.
Tuning Your Djembe: Tying Diamonds
Once a drum has been built and dry pulled, it will periodically need to be tuned, as both the skin and the ropes slowly stretch over time. This is done by weaving the tuning rope in a specific pattern between the vertical ropes and pulling down. This is called the Mali Weave or tying diamonds.
The verbal description of this is over two ropes, reverse, under one, over one, reverse, under two. Here is a diagram, courtesy of Shorty Palmer:
Once the rope has been woven like this, and all of the extra slack pulled through, it needs to be pulled down firmly until it is as low as possible, and as you progress around the drum, keep it parallel to the bottom ring. If you don’t focus on that, it has a tendency to gradually creep up into a spiral.
You do not tune Djembes to a particular pitch. They are tuned up until they stop sounding “ringy”, and the sound gets clear and dry. In a traditional setting, the lead or solo Djembe is tuned significantly higher than the Djembes playing accompaniment to help it sound out above them.
Finishing it off: Wrapping the Rope Around the Bowl of the Drum
A method that is a little bit trickier, but to my eye better looking, is to wrap the rope around the bowl of the Djembe, just above the cradle loops. This will usually provide a neat looking and stable configuration, particularly if the drum does not have a lot of diamonds already tied.
As before, begin wrapping in the same direction that the existing cradles have been tied. Wrap just above the bottom cradles, one layer, no overlaps. The tops of the cradle loops form a small ledge or shelf that the rope can sit on top of. You will have to turn the drum as you wrap and maintain steady tension to keep it in place. Once there are only six inches of rope left, use a modified screwdriver to pry under one of the vertical ropes above and tuck the free end under it. If there is still extra rope, tuck it a second time under an adjacent rope, so that it looks neat.
Sometimes, especially when there are already a good number of diamonds already pulled, the shelf formed by the cradle loops will be too small to hold the rope securely, and it will fall off easily. There are two solutions to that. The first is to move to the stem wrap described above. The second is to tuck the rope under a pair of verticals halfway around the drum, and again when you get to where you started, so that you are tucking at 6- and 12-O’clock.
