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 it's dropping. He will cool it down when it's too hot. But when the dancer is really going into a trance the master drummer will roll a phrase and repeat it and the dancer will react to the drummer's improvisation. With their feet dancers can improvise with what the master drummer is doing, as long as there is a solid, positive rhythm. To be a master you also have to hear what is not being played. When you play like that you might go into a trance yourself. Because it becomes more like predicting. You have to anticipate that this or that rhythm might be something the dead person likes, certain kinds of phrases. You know that he liked certain phrases when he was alive. He would just get up and dance. A master drummer has to know what people like, because you play for the spirit of what is happening at any event, for the living and the dead.

Kofi Ayivor