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Feb 07
Tuesday

  • Walking Dance

    Walking Dance

    I experiment with making new songs on the street. One was dedicated to my uncle, called "Shokolokobangoshe", another was a kind of original African rap called, "Dig It or the Walking Dance." They're a synthesis of traditional and modern styles. It's all from experience... Read More

  • Anticipate

    Anticipate

    A master drummer also knows when not to play. It depends on the atmosphere or the dancer dancing in front of you. If your cowbell player is playing positive rhythms then the phrases you are going to provide will be good ones. The master drummer will also pick it up when i... Read More

  • Positive

    Positive

    I was an apprentice for at least ten years. First you know how to play the cowbell and then you move to the ayaya, the maraca, and then after to akpagbang, one of the little drums. Then you have the ashiwui; but if you can play the cowbell, the maraca and akpagbang that mea... Read More

  • Trance

    Trance

    We have special rhythms for that. I had to study them by hearing them, not writing them down. When I go and play my cowbell with my uncle he knows I will play the cowbell right. Like I said, he is a very good drummer, and if you make a mistake he hits you on the head. Because... Read More

  • Spirits

    Spirits

    In our village culture, if somebody comes to sacrifice some animals, or they are wishing for a certain herb, or if a person is very ill and someone else wants that person to get better and come to the stool, they pray in front of the stool. That comes before Christianity. By... Read More

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  • World Stories   ( 1 Article )

    World Percussion Stories

    This is the place for personal and community stories from your place. Tell us about the good times, the impact on people around you and the spirit of the music.

     Please register and create your account on this site, so you can add your story, audio and video.

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  • Kofi Ayivor Stories   ( 13 Articles )

    Feeling Rhythms

    In traditional African life the master drummer plays an enormous role in providing social cohesion. He is the keeper and transmitter of much wisdom. Besides generating a truly folk music for the whole community at festivals, weddings, funerals, or during communal work or play, he may also conduct musical duels or act as a healer of the sick. The music he masters is alive from within an imbued with a spirit that invites call and response, dialogue, and conversation among various voices, rhythms, and dancers. This spirit can also speak from the dead ancestors to the living.

    Master drummer Kofi Ayivor grew up in the Ewe region of eastern Ghana and western Togo, an area renowned for its knowledge of "syncopations" and cross-rhythms. Whereas in the New World, Africans were able, in the words of enthomusicologist John Collins, "to turn European rhythm inside out creating syncopated space for jazz and reggae," back in West Africa, at least, it had been syncopation itself that lay at the very heart of the musical culture. This is a key concept that recurred in my discussions with Kofi Ayivor. A selection follows from Kofi Ayivor's forthcoming autobiography.

    Scott Rollins, Amsterdam
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