Drumming In Ghana

[zaragenca]

Again brother David,you are confusing what I mean,I learn this patterns with the people which belong to the araras lineage in Cuba and confronted with this people from Guinea without knowing them and it was recognized by them and also by the Senegal/Drummers,(and still drumming with a Djembe/Djun-Djun teacher from Guinea,(when I go to Galveston)....You are confused Guinea was the name used for that are of West Africa before being called,Ivory Coast,Gold Coast,and Slave Coast by the Portugese,also the Golf was called,the Golf of Guinea,..Senegal,Ghane,etc.etc., are names which were used after the colonization of West Africa...so the name Guinea is more originally of that area than those names used after.Dr. Zaragemca

[davidpenalosa]

...so again for you information Guinea was a name used for that area before been called with those individual names.

Again, BOTH uses of the term "Guinea" came from Europeans and djundjuns share no cultural lineage with Arara.
-david

[zaragenca]

you are telling me that becouse they are from Guinea they have not relevance to that culture and that is wrong becouse that name was used before the other individual nemas for the whole area, the Araras is before that name also.Dr. Zaragemca

[zaragenca]

I would like to ask to CongaMan, to set back the editing/features.Dr. Zaragemca

[davidpenalosa]

Speaking of Ghanaian drumming, I highly recommend master drummer and scholar C.K. Ladzekpo’s website:

www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/Foundation.html

C.K is an Ewe from Ghana who traveled throughout sub-Saharan Africa studying the continent’s music. A master of Ghanaian drumming, C.K taught traditional music at the University of Ghana and currently teaches at the University of California at Berkeley. His wonderful website describes sub-Saharan drumming, fundamental rhythmic principles and specifics concerning Ewe culture, drums and rhythms.

C.K. shares the same basic cross-rhythm theories articulated by ethnomusicologist David Locke ("Principles of Off-Beat Timing and Cross-Rhythm in Southern Ewe Dance-Drumming"). I was fortunate because my first conga teacher Kim Atkinson taught me this essential way of understanding our music. All my current percussion colleagues here in the Eureka/Arcata area also view the music through the perspective of cross-rhythm. Cross-rhythm explains not only the "how" of clave, but also the "why", something lacking in all the contemporary Latin percussion literature.

C.K. explains the cultural significance of cross-rhythm on the webpage "The Myth of Cross-Rhythm". Here’s an excerpt:

"In Anlo-Ewe cultural understanding, the technique of cross rhythm is a highly developed systematic interplay of varying rhythmic motions simulating the dynamics of contrasting moments or emotional stress phenomena likely to occur in actual human existence."

There are no discernable traces of specific Anlo-Ewe drumming in Cuba. But the Fon and Ewe belong to a larger linguistic group. In fact, a lot of anthropology and ethno-musicology literature classifies the ethnic group as Fon/Ewe. So, while Anlo-Ewe drumming specifically did not end up in Cuba, it’s very close to that island’s Arara (Fon) music. The website is very cool.
-David

[zaragenca]

Ok do those guides went to Cuba in 1576 in order to say that those patterns didn' arrived to Cuba?,not.... In relation to the wide covering and relationship of the vocabulary among those Fon/Ewe tribes,WE KNEW THAT LONG,LONG TIME AGO,but thanks for you references as always.Dr. Zaragemca