How to Play Muffled Slaps on Djembe | African Drums

Male 1: We're going to learn how to play the
Muffled Slap on the Djembe. This is not as common, but sometimes it's
used with the bass Djembe parts, or the soloists can use it to embellish what they're playing
on the lead parts. My drum I have here is a low tune drum. It's a bass Djembe. So it's low. Bimba. Bimba: This is the solo Djembe. Male 1: That's the solo Djembe. So a Muffled Slap is like a closed slap. And the way we do that is by keeping our hand
against the skin of the drum. You'll see my thumb is out of the way. And I slide my hand all the way up, until
my pinky knuckle lines up with the rim. And I also make sure that there's one space
for the right, one space for the left. If you find that your hands are covering the
same space, either your technique is faulty, or your drum is too small. So the Muffled Slap chokes the drum like this. And sometimes, you put your other hand to
even make it tighter like this.

Sounds different on Bimba's drum. Bimba: Because my Djembe is a solo Djembe,
very high. So my Muffle is a little different, because
as soon as I use it, you can hear how high the drum is done. See? See? No different Muffle. Different one. Another one. Yet another one. You got a this one. So you got three different muffles. The longer you been playing the Djembe the
longer you got to hold that technique. Male 1: That's how you play the Muffled Slap
on the Djembe..

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