Drumming Gig With Students From Belgium

 So I did another drumming gig with a school in George, Outeniqua High School...

There was a foreign exchange program coming to ts end...so the South African learners took their Belgian counterparts on a tour in a "Loxion"(Location - also called a settlement or township)
where the local people invited them into their shack homes, and danced for them when they left each house....what an amazing experience!!!

 The first photo is a picture of the set up that I used...25 Drums in a big circle, with a skinless shell on display....When I start my drum session(it was done as a Team Building Exercise), I always start by introducing the Djembe, telling them how its made(Machine - Lathe - made drums versus hand carved drums)...what type of skins are used, and a little history about the Djembe.

 Then we start our actual drumming by playing the three basic notes on the Djembe to get them used to the hand placement for those three notes...(If you go back to my earlier posts on this blog I describe the three basic notes in quite a bit of detail)

After that we start to play full rhythms from Ta-Ka-Doem-Ta...to...Heartbeat Rhythms, and even some interesting Polyrythms!!!

At a point in the session when I can see that everyone has got the general understanding of how to play the Djembe, I split the group into three smaller groups...give them 5mins to come up with their very own rhythm.  As you can imagine they compete fiercely with each other and I stir the pot a bit by going over to each group and telling them more or less what I want to hear.  Look how hard they are all concentrating...hehehe


This is the entire group once we were done...tired hands but happy faces...

I am so grateful that what I do for a living is, not only my passion, but it brings joyful memories to people that will not be forgotten for a very long time...

I am privileged to become a small part of all my drum students lives!!!!....




Should you want any more info on my Team Building Drum Sessions please feel free to email me on daniel@djembeman.co.za or even phone me on +2782958482!

Thank you for enjoying my blog with me!

Enjoy your day further!

Daniel Nicholson A.K.A "Djembeman"

Drumming at the Redberry Festival

 So, I got asked to do a drum circle for 2 days at the Redberry Farm...

They do an annual strawberry festival....

So these are the pics of the 2 days, it was a lot of fun, and I got to market my business like crazy!!!!! As you can see in the pics, I made sure my car's signage was very visible at all times!!!

 Thanks mom for coming round and taking a couple of pics for me.....she also brought me Energade cool drinks to keep me going...I was basically drumming none stop for 6-8hours each day....

 There were times that I got the kids going on a rhythm, then stood back and chatted to their parents about my business and giving the marketing "speech"...lol

 My hands at the end of the day...Zoom in and see just how much pain they were in....

 And so the day went on, people of all ages came and drummed and had fun....This was a school group that rocked up and virtually took over completely....loved having them there...they created such a big "Buzz" for 30mins that it brought a load of people over just because of their happy vibe!!!

And this lovely family took a bunch of their own photos and emailed this kiff pic to me...didn't even know they were taking the photo until I got their mail...

Thanks to the Redberry Farm for the invitation to attend the Fest!!!

8ta Beach Festival

So I got hired to join the 8ta team on their "Its Playtime This Summer Beach Festival" ...

We traveled to beaches from Cape Town along the coast to East London...

These pics were taken in Sedgefield...

 On this particular day, George "the Beatboxer" Avakian(formally the winner of SA's Got Talent 2010, I think)...

At one point he literally called me up on stage and we proceeded to have a "Drum Battle", his mouth versus my hands...

Needless to say...fun was had by all....

How do ya like the fist pound on the right!?

Drumming gig at Milkwood Villiage, Wildernis, South Africa

 So thiese are a bunch of my fellow drummers from around the Garden Route...we got together and put on a drumming show at Milkwood Villiage in Wildernis.

We played for about 2 hours and had an absolute blast....here are the guys:

To the right is Zen and Daniel Chippendale(Zen on the Xhosa Dun Dun and Dan on Djembe)

To the left is Myself on the far right...behind me is Pat!...I've known Pat for close on 13years now, and his style of drumming lends itself to the American Indian Tribal Chanting Rhythms...pretty awsome stuff!!!




Here's the one and only Pat:

 Here is Zen playing on the wooden flute...What an amazing musician Zen is as well...not only is he a drummer, but plays the flute, the panpipe and also the didgeareedoo...and a few more but I'm uncertain of the names....

And of course...no show is complete without an adoring audience....thank you to Lauren Mcdonald at Milkwood Villiage for allowing us to make some noise and have a lot of fun doing it!!!...

We hope to do many more in the future!!!!

Master Drummer at Play

This is Peter from the Wilderness area(Garden Route)

It was absolutely amazing to drum along with you, and thank you for the awesome Vibe You and the Band brought to us on Sat.(Big Blu,Mosselbay,S.A)

I hope we get some more clips from you.
Daniel

My Favourite Place to Drum

This is my favourite place in the George area to play drums,
The Garden Route Botanical Gardens(www.botanicalgarden.org.za/)

Most of my drum clips will be from this garden...please go check out their website to find out more!