This rhythm by Mamady Keita is featured on his album Mandeng Djara and can be found in his excellent book Nankama. Some parts are different in the book to how we originally learned them so are marked N. Consider them as variations :)
110bpm 4/4 ||:1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & :||
$
Djembe 1 || B.SB..SO | OOS.O..B || ("Baboons are big,
Djembe 1 N || B.SB..OO | OOS.O..B || you should never feed them")
r rl rl rlr r l
$
Djembe 2 || B...OOOO | O...Z..B || ("Baboons, very very big, YES")
r rlrl r r l
Djembe 3 || S..SS.OO | S..SS.OO || ("Fly away, Cuckoo")
r lr rl
Bell 1 || x.xx.xx. | x.xx.xx. ||
+Kenkeni || ..KK..k. | ..KK..k. || ("Have some apricots")
$
Bell 2 || xx.x.x.x | x.x.x.x. | x.x.x.x. | x.x.x.x. ||
+Sangban || .G...... | G...G.G. | ....g.g. | g...G.G. ||
+Sangban N || .G...... | G...G.G. | g...g... | g...G.G. ||
Bell 3 || xx.x.x.x | x.x.x.x. | x.x.x.x. | x.x.x.x. ||
+Dununba || D..D.D.D | ..D..... | ........ | ........ ||
Woodblock 1 || ..xx..x. | ..xx..x. ||
$
Woodblock 2 || x...x.x. | x...x.x. ||
Djembe 1 should be played on drums with higher-pitched tones.
Djembe 2 should be played on drums with lower-pitched tones,
and is the easiest one for Beginners to learn first (+Woodblock 2).
Djembe 3 is Rythme Populaire once again.
Woodblock 1 is the same as the Kenkeni. Bells 2 and 3 are identical.
Start with the Song accompanied by just Woodblocks and Kenkeni. Then you could either play the Signal then Break as an intro, or build it up like this:
To begin, start with Djembe 2 and Dununba, then
after four Dununba repeats, add Sangban, and then
after four Sangban repeats, add Kenkeni, and then
soon afterwards go to the Break, where Djembes copy the Dun Duns:
Count ||:1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & :||
Djembe call || OSSOSSOS | SOSSOSS. | S3SS.O3O | O.S3OSS. || +
Djembe resp || BS.B.B.B | S.B.s.s. | ........ | ........ ||
rl r r r l r f f
Bell 1 || x.xx.xx. | x.xx.xx. | x.xx.xx. | x.xx.xx. ||
+Kenkeni || ..KK..k. | ..KK..k. | ..KK..k. | ..KK..k. ||
Bell 2 || xx.x.x.x | x.x.x.x. | ........ | ....x.x. ||
+Sangban || .G...... | G...G.G. | ........ | ....G.G. ||
Bell 3 || xx.x.x.x | x.x.x.x. | ........ | ........ ||
+Dununba || D..D.D.D | ..D..... | ........ | ........ ||
@
Then either return to Main Rhythm, or end (@ here) after the final Echauffement.
This rhythm accompanies the song called "Deni Kinantan":
Toroninbe kinantan toroninbe ("A child without parents suffers")
Count ||:1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & :||
Tune GGG. || G--ee-c- | AAA-A--- | -------- | ....GGG. ||
Toroninbe kinantan toroninbe
Bell 3 || xx.x.x.x | x.x.x.x. | ........ | ........ ||
+Dununba || D..D.D.D | ..D..... | ........ | ........ ||
The above chorus is chanted by everyone, answering a call from the leader (lyrics unintelligible). On Mamady's CD, the chorus sometimes starts on the second bar for the first few times; only on the final repeat before the Break/end does it start in the first bar, as written above, after an extra-long line sung by the leader to resolve the extra bar. So the song tends to turn your head upside down in relation to the dununba part. A simpler arrangement for non-native speakers would just be to repeat the phrase as notated above in a call and response, so that's what we do :)
Babara Bangoura taught it in Abene with different words sounding like "Toronindor kinantan toronindor", and had another high phrase answering:
Count ||:1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & | 3 & 4 & :||
Tune GGG. || G--ee-c- | AAA-A--- | -------- | ....GGG. ||
Toronindor kinantan toronindor
Ay kinantan toronindor
Counter-melody | C--DD-b- | CCC-C---:||
(c) New
African drum rhythm composed (in neo-traditional
Guinean style) in 2007 by
Mamady Keita,
taught by
Justine at
Vitae Drum Circle.
(notated by
Malcolm Smith on 2008-09-30;
Song, Woodblocks and Djembe call added on 2008-11-01 from Mamady's CD,
and
Nankama
book versions of 1+G added on 2015-07-28; Babara's Counter-melody added on
2017-11-29)