Djembe Tribe is a bunch of friends coming together we meet up once a week every saturday we bring our drums and we play some music together and it's mostly based off
of west african percussion I think i see it as a open space where you can bring your drum your instrument you can come as you are you
can sing or clap your hands and a place where we practice
together and share rhythms and challenging each other to learn more and pushing each other i think in the direction of playing more drums and exploring more rhythms and see what we can do with it together Djembe Tribe for me is like a gathering i think the word Djembe is a really beautiful word Djem-be the two components of the
word means to gather in peace so the very essence of the the
instrument that we're playing is about bringing people together in peace and that i think speaks to
the spirit of Djembe Tribe which is a gathering of people a collection of people So a Djembe it's a drum you see it with
it in between your legs it's about the size of a log
because it comes from a log it's a hollowed out log with
a goat skin strapped on top is basically what it is so it's a piece of wood and a skin basically maybe we can show here here's one we prepared earlier but it's like one piece of wood that has been carved to have this shape
and then hollowed out all the way through it's sort of like quite
heavy this is like five kilos it's a drum yeah it's a drum in other words it's a piece of wood with skin on it there's one metal hoop here and there's another metal hoop that's
folded where the skin is folded over it here and these two are pressing down on one another and the ropes are then tied to the top metal hoop and then wrap around the bottom metal hoop and tie down to another metal hoop
that's sits at the base of the shell the more pressure that's pulled
down on those two top metal hoops basically it's kind of basic the tighter the skin gets and the tighter the skin gets
the higher the sound you get i'll say what my role has been and what it is now my role has been to organize
the events on saturdays and also to lead some of the classes it's broken up in two parts the saturday events so there's a class and then there's a free jam so i've been teaching some of these classes with the best of my abilities yeah and it's just been to
kind of keep that going and showing up bringing the drums and keeping it going In Djembe Tribe my role is facilitator i guess when it comes to a drum group the means
of facilitation that i feel like i do is by holding a rhythm a very steady simple rhythm that then allows the conversation to take place holding the space i guess you could say which is a phrase thrown around quite a bit you know this idea "can you hold space
for me or i'm holding space for you" but in the language of rhythm and through
communicating through percussion or drums holding space for me means something very simple
something very steady something very repetitive that can be leaned up against I think my role has been a lot of like the practical things around it like picking up drums like you mentioned before on dba i found some drums changing skin on them and of course i have been
there also at Djembe Tribe with my energy I have brought some rhythms there and now i think my role is also a bit of like like Shaan said he keeps the ground rhythm and then maybe we want to dive deeper and learn
something specific like a phrase and so on and maybe then i'm the person
who shows that and like a person that the beginners can lean
back on and like look at my hands or i see someone is lost maybe
and then i break it down a bit and show it a bit simpler and yeah Jack my good friend who started
Djembe Tribe with me back last year has also been a huge instrumental part of it and like any good group i guess we have to have space for times
where each of us needs to pull back and have time to rest or reflect or do something different and not necessarily be so I guess you could say occupied
with holding the space and we've done that at different points where I'll be away for a few weeks because i'm
busy with work or something like that and Simon is traveling or something
and Jack is away for a little bit and so we've had a few people who have held this facilitation role
in different ways together and Jack's been an instrumental part
of teaching mainly those classes I would hold the the dun dun groove the dun dun are like the the bass drums the three big bass drums and Simon would hold the Djembe voice and then jack would teach the groove so we would have the support
of the road and the melody and then Jack would lean on
that to then instruct beginners in their tones and how to play
the groove and different voices and jack's amazing at that facilitating and teaching beginners and bringing people who have
never played a drum into like banging on this thing in time really amazing teacher I think also big support has been Jesper especially in the beginning when
we didn't have our own drums he was always bringing drums and he's also a really good drum builder yeah he brought some of his own drums he build and that was also a big support i think like great support yeah my name is Jesper I make music instruments mainly west african music instruments and besides you know playing them and the
different kind of abilities all of them have I really enjoy playing them
together with other people and in that relation i have a lot of playing
with Djembe Tribe and the guys from there the whole community tribe thing going on what i really like about the drumming is for sure that everybody can participate
and we can all have a good time and it doesn't really matter
what kind of level you are on because there is a space for everybody
when we're sitting in a drumming circle and we're able to make some magic together and then it's for sure a passion of
mine also to make the music instruments among these ones drums usually is a very individual thing one thing is that the sound all drums have different sounds on them but definitely also the aesthetics on it and you know your music instrument
should reflect you as a personality both the sound but definitely
also the style of the drum over here is actually two drums that are drying this is two stages of drums this drum is mounted recently so it's
still drying and it's wet so it's here this one though is it is dry but i need to
remove the the hair on top of the drum now in here we have a more of the workshop this is the the dun dun set it is the
bass drums of of west african percussion I have heaps of skins in different
colors and different sizes depending on what you want on it a lot of different skins you can put on it mainly you use goat or you use
calf skin on these things but I mount them with a horse also cow calf steer I did a lizard drum also so it's very
different what people want on their drums so the workbench of course with
all the small necessities and here i have a lot of drum shells both in different sizes I have a lot of facilitating drums all of them are hand carved out none of them are made on machine all of them are carved by
traditional african tools with which they are carved out from and in hand-carved shells there is a
resonance going back and forth within a drum that bounces the sound differently
than if you turn it on a machine I like to think about it also that
the drum have a little bit more soul because it's the makers of the drum for me i am building them I am mounting the drums but also the the carvers
that made the carvings on it but also hollowing out it it is a science going to it how much wideness in your neck to
your throat and stuff like this it makes a difference for sure it does for me this Djembe Tribe is
about trying to create a space where we can meet and go deeper and we're using the drum and the music as a tool to go past all of our interpersonal bs also our psychological bs you could say
that we maybe live our lives up here a lot and to step into a more primal
place lower down in our bodies and connect on that level if you haven't experienced that
before that's a whole nother life experience way of being with people where you can really feel a sense of connection and that's what i think is
so awesome with Djembe Tribe and that's what's fascinated me so much with drums what's so awesome about it also is that you
don't need to be an experienced musician to access this kind of state if you're just in the right
space with the right facilitator who can introduce you in and
make you a part of the group you don't need to know anything
you can just hit the drum hit the bass and holy [ __ ] i'm playing
music with a bunch of people i'm a part of something it can totally transform your inner state
for that saturday that you're at Djembe Tribe and that's been something
extremely positive in my life and because it was so positive i immediately
wanted to share that with other people and then somehow along the way the uh at least from my side I feel like my own interpersonal bs and own
complexes and problems relating to people has somehow become stronger than the musical thing and it's created some problems
within the group dynamic and this kind of split the group a bit so now i'm taking a step back and coming in tentatively with a different approach balancing the energy that is required to hold that space drive the drums do that facilitation organize the budget teach the class requires a ton of energy you know to sit with beginners every week and be like okay so welcome to Djembe Tribe this is Djembe blah blah blah three notes here are the notes and you say that every week week after week gets super tiring and i think we've all taken a
turn at being spent and been like i'm done you take the next class kind of thing you know having a leader step at the
front of the pack and walk forwards breaks the energy that then makes it
easier for people behind to following you see birds flying in a v shape right that's because the bird at
the front is breaking the wind and then it's much easier
for all of the other birds because they're already in
that jet stream sort of thing so granted like it goes without
saying that being the one who's "come on guys let's meet saturday 11 o'clock you ready? Simon you're coming Shaan you're coming Jack you're coming or whoever it is like Jesper you're coming" takes a ton of energy to put to drive that onwards and that can sometimes be like ah why are we doing this actually what are we doing this for actually the most awesome moments or the most
beautiful moments for me at Djembe Tribe have hands down been over the
summer where we could play outside and we would just spend all saturday in the sun with friends with food people would come by in Fælledparken people would come and dance
a little bit as well and like there were some moments there
in the summer where Alky one of our good friends from Guinea
would teach dance after Djembe Tribe and so he would come to a lot
of our jams and jam with us and so some people would come and
dance during our drumming sessions and there were just some jams there that were just dancing sunshine good friends the experience that I can have that we can have drumming feels more like it's not just like playing music
but it's like we're traveling through a new landscape and that was really exciting for me especially
at the start of the project realizing this because i've always looked for different
frontiers to explore in my life and I've always had this kind of wish of like oh I wish that there was some
unexplored rainforest or something that i could go explore or some some uncharted area of the
map where i could just go there like where is that nowadays everything is explored but through playing drum it's like the space right here right around me has so many different depths
to it that i can explore and then i can explore with my mates you know like looking over and
seeing my buddy Shaan there seeing my buddy Simon and it's like the feeling is like oh my god
we're on a ship at high seas and it's going you know and i look over there and it's like "how are you doing over there it's going crazy I got it though all right keep going yeah" you know it's yeah so that's what it's about so where do we go from here what comes next for Djembe Tribe what are on the horizons for us what are our dreams visions before the summer this year so maybe like six months ago or so I had actually reached out to a few different ngos that were working with refugees here in denmark we had talked about moving drums out there and either just playing for them
or bringing the kids into it and doing a little drum workshop for the children the summer flew by so fast and with you know some
activities that just raced ahead we didn't get a chance to actually
carry out and implement this project but for me it's still on the back burner of like okay we've got a good sort of base of
drummers who are capable in copenhagen and we've now also acquired a
bunch of djembes as Djembe Tribe so how do we then put this to good use to
like then take it out for a social cause to do activities workshops with schools children disadvantaged areas for example especially with refugee children
syrians afghans you know wherever they're from is a chance to release and heal through
music which is a form of expression like art therapy basically through drumming a chance for them to connect to themselves to connect to each other to create community and to heal for a moment to have a break from their
lives and their existence which might also be kind of
one-dimensional and somewhat difficult drumming gives you a chance
to go into another world I think the first big priority would be to reshuffle the order of how i've said it is to ensure the continuity of Djembe Tribe as a group that meets once a week
for a couple of hours and makes music I think that's like the first
big forward-looking step of how do we ensure that as a sustainable process meaning how do we ensure that enough
funds come in to maintain the drums how do we ensure that enough funds come in to
maintain the studio which we pay rental for and importantly how do we maintain the energy of the facilitators which changes with the politics
of how you feel and our group so how do we ensure that
there's enough of a stable base that there'll be someone facilitating it if i get tired or sick i'm
fed up with Djembe Tribe I'm sick of Simon and Jack
or whatever it is you know then can someone else step in and
take over and do whatever is needed maybe Jack Simon and I and Jesper
we all get sick of drumming can someone else then carry on
the mantle and take it forwards so that's the big priority forward looking how do we ensure
the sustainability of Djembe Tribe Two how do we take it further to not just being
about creating music and having fun for ourselves but how do we make that a social
enterprise or a social endeavor to then give that sense of healing or
community to groups that might need it marginalized groups refugees schools disadvantaged groups and a third thing would be doing performances and having some more sort of like
shows gigs concerts kind of thing
