Every year I journey into a new genre of drumming as part of developing a synoptical knowledge of different genres. It’s a little something I picked up from How to Read a Book.
This year I wanted to cover Afro-Cuban drumming.
Starting off the year, I’ll be learning and trying to replicate the playing heard in Bembé rituals. The main goal over this week has been getting a better understanding of the different drums played during these rituals and seeing how they predicate the evolution of Afro-Cuban playing. I’ve asked myself frequently the following:
- What role does the Bembé bell play? I’ve read frequently that this is the starter role for newer drummers in the ceremony. Why is that so?
In trying to understand more about the role of this pattern, I’ve spent each day of the past week playing the bell pattern without a metronome for 30 minutes a day, then accompanying some modern interpretations of Bembé ceremonial music for another 30 minutes. Outside of this practice, I’ve also been listening to the ceremonial music on repeat and finding online videos of ceremony enactments. The purpose of this exercise has been gaining more intuition in the role and allowing myself to fully fall into groove with it. Isolating this pattern alone from the drum set is done for two reasons:
- the bell player traditionally would practice years before gaining the necessary intuition to play on less time-foundational instruments, and
- I don’t have access to my drum set this week :(.
But what I’ve discovered has helped me immensely with my practice. Here were some of the insights from this week.
Living without a Metronome
One of the most important parts of Bembé or any kind of folkloric genre comes from the fact that there was no metronomes. Time relativity was based on knowing your space in a group. When other people were playing, it was about having enough space to have a certain amount of notes in between and knowing exactly where and when you fit. It was about respecting a kind of hierarchy that exists within the instruments.
It reminded me of this concept in The Music Lesson where, when you listen to the chorus of creatures in the middle of the woods, none seem to talk over each other. Each animal, each plant, each bug, etc, all have their place both in time and wavelength. Their calls can create a unity which creates safety when in danger. Or simply to signal each other for mating. Even silence is played frequently when predators appear.
I think coming from a period where we’ve had metronomes for so long put me at a learning disadvantage because relaxing into the group dynamic went against every fiber of my being. Years of drum corp and sitting alone in a practice room do nothing when your time becomes relative to the company around you. Sure, a met helps with accuracy and precision, but they fall short when groove takes the podium and you’re asked to stretch/bend with communal time.
The Power of Community
I’ve started thinking virtuosity came about when people started being able to survive as individuals. It’s something I notice more and more. As I get older, I’ve noticed isolation get promoted to greater extents each year. This shift gets reflected in my playing too, where I’ve always felt there was a glamour in being an individual, having chops, and standing out. I fell victim to some delusional promise that these things created financial and career security. This feeling made listening to this music at first feel foreign because I couldn’t figure out where the solos were, which instrument held the melody, or even how to practice this on the drum set.
It may just be because I don’t really know anything about the time period, but one of the most fascinating parts about listening to something like Bembé music, is that no single person, no single part, stands out. The melody and the power of this song all come as a result of communal playing. No part takes the spotlight. And I think it makes sense. If that music is coming from a place where people had to rely on each other, where people lived in tribes and had to work together, no person stood out as an individual. Everyone was part of a community and played a bigger role in the growth or survival of their community.
Part of the community role is that melody is shared between parts. Like a chorus of creatures in the wilderness, each instrument creates its own chirp, its own sound, its own wavelength. Individually, each part says little. It’s only when you throw them all together in cyclical time and with consistency that patterns emerge.
I was so fixated on looking for a moving part that I missed the point of it entirely. That there is no moving parts, or they’re scarce and sacred when they appear. The purpose of this music is to be a part of something. In the middle of it. And part of the foundation of it. And I think in starting to understand that better, I can take that everywhere I go. It’s not just about playing well, but playing the part that is invisible, yet means the most. It means respecting Music herself. Not trying to be cool.
I realize I still have a lot to learn. But to answer my original question: The Bembé bell pattern (also played on the hoe blade) serves as the group time. It’s a metronome in the sense that it is the time-keeper, though it should be made distinct from the role an actual metronome in that it’s not meant to keep absolute time. It’s a form of relative time which creates space and groove for the other instruments to build off of.
Practicing the exercises I laid out helped me get a base intuition for the time they revolved around. I walk around and I hear that bell pattern frequently now, and not just in music. For one, The Lesson by Victor Wooten (can you tell I’ve been really into him lately?) mirrors the bell pattern.
It’s become clear to me out of the gate that the way to approach folkloric music versus contemporary is drastically different. Folkloric music isn’t about independence, freedom, or vocabulary by any means. There is no repertoire. No composition. You can’t just go listening to other people’s music and get the fills/feeling right. It’s about respecting the cycles of time. It’s about paying tribute to the ceremonies which they were used for, and developing a deeper intimacy with Music. I’m excited to see how the continued foundational work here will help anchor my sense of groove and time elsewhere.