Bobaloo Drums is located in Nokomis Florida. Bobaloo regularily participates in the Nokomis key and Siesta key drum circles, and has extensive drum making and drum repair experience. If you and when see him at the drumcircle, he is the handsome fellow displayed on top left side of the header page. Please do not hesitate to approach him, as he welcomes all 'walkins' with great joy.

The Djembe In Modern Music

The djembe plays a key role in modern music that needs a highly percussive rhythym section. It has been used by such artists as Ben Harper, Paul Simon, Grateful Dead, Incubus' Brandon Boyd, and Dispatch. An American manufactured version of an African djembe was played on main stage with a New Zealand Maori fire twirler in a show produced by the Canadian circus company, Cirque du Soleil, called Allegria, which was filmed in Australia in 2000. The djembe is very popular in drum circles, and in many circles is the primary instrument, most likely for its easily portable size, wide range of sounds, and its distinct tones. In certain songs that use the djembe it replaces a drumset to give it a different feel, such as "Burn One Down" by Ben Harper.

Learning

Learning to play the djembe generally involves finding a master drummer and having a couple of private lessons or lessons for small groups of people. Players generally need no less than 2 months to achieve a meaningfull sound and no less than 2 years to achieve a sound that is at least comparable to master drummers'.

Many rhythms can be found on the internet but novice players are still advised to seek for teachers since this rhythms are not easy to transcribe. Usually only the basic idea of the rhythm is transcribed but the real feeling that it carries can't be put down on a paper very easily.

Intermediate and advanced players usually join workshops with many students (sometimes up to 15) and learn new phrases and rhythms from master drummers. Literature for these two levels of drummers is still scarce if not unavailable.