About me

I have always been drawn to music. Some of my earliest memories are of filling empty milk bottles with just the right levels of water to create the notes I needed to reproduce nursery rhymes or songs I had learned at school. As soon as I was old enough I began to learn an instrument at school. At first they tried me out on violin, but after breaking several bows they gave me a trumpet, presumably because it was harder to break a metal instrument! Being a rather loud child the trumpet certainly suited my personality and I played classical trumpet right the way through primary and secondary school, achieving grade 5 practical and grade 3 theory.

For some time I was aware that the music I was learning was not satisfying me…I longed to play blues or jazz but classical was all that was on offer, so I gave up classical music while at college and taught myself to play the electric guitar. After several years spent playing in bands I migrated to acoustic guitar and then, while at university my parents brought back a didgeridoo from Australia and I was hooked. I taught myself to circular breath in a matter of hours and played didge in every spare moment. I loved the sound of the didge…the mystical sound it produced and how it was so intimately linked to breathing, but there was one instrument that I was even more drawn to…hand drums. Whenever I saw drumming at a festival I longed to try but was always too shy. So one day I bought a djembe from the local music shop and took it home to play in private.

From the first moment I laid my hands on it I knew that this was the instrument I was destined to play. That sounds corny I know but it’s the truth. I had an aptitude for hand drums that I had never possessed for trumpet or guitar. I loved the way I could improvise immediately and found rhythm intoxicating and meditative in equal measure. I started taking my djembe along to parties and then to clubs, playing alongside DJs. Since I was never very good at dancing (it made me feel very self-conscious and was never fun like it seemed to be for others) it gave me a role at festivals and parties. I became the ‘drum guy’ at university and took it with me wherever I went…

After I’d been playing for a couple of years I saw a poster advertising ‘African Drumming’ lessons and thought it would be interesting to learn a different style of playing. Besides, I’d reached a plateau and was unsure how to progress so this seemed the perfect next step…

Just like from the first moment I touched a djembe I knew it was for me, from the very first class I attended I knew that West African drumming was the style that I loved. It forced me to focus and control my playing…to listen to the other interlocking parts and appreciate how they interacted with my part. It was as if a whole new world of possibilities had opened up. I was hooked.

I played once a week in this class and progressed fast…I became quite obsessive and would sing the rhythms to myself as I walked down the street…I couldn’t get them out of my head and they would keep me awake long into the night.

When I left university I found myself at a crossroads and faced with a choice of whether to follow my heart or my head. Being a person of passion my heart won out and I found myself buying a one-way ticket to The Gambia, initially to stay with my teacher’s teacher Maitre Samsou. The first time I saw him play was a revelation…simply jaw dropping. Seeing your first djembefola is a bit like your first love…it is truly overwhelming and nothing else will ever come close. I simply could not believe what I was seeing and hearing…it was like magic…I couldn’t believe that this was humanly possible. It certainly made me realize that I was a complete amateur! At that point I decided that I wanted to be able to do that…or at least get as close to it as I could…

I studied with Samsou for about three months, then took a taxi to Guinea Conakry. It’s a long story and I don’t have room to tell it all here, but I ended up living in West Africa for three years. I played with the local djembe troupe in a village called Kissidougou for a year when I landed a job with a French NGO, stayed with Fadouba Olaré for two weeks, spent time in Sierra Leone and Mali, before returning to The Gambia to study and play with Maitre Samsou for a whole year. I returned to the UK in 2005 determined to try and make my living out of teaching the djembe.

Initially I started a small drumming group in Sheffield, while taking every opportunity to learn at workshops, drum festivals and studying privately with several djemebfolas residing in the UK. I have studied extensively with Nansady Keita, Iya Sako and Seckou Keita (amongst others). As I learned more solo I started to realise that there was an inconsistency between the way djembefolas taught solo and the way they actually played solo in concert. While the standard way to learn and teach solo was in the form of learned solo phrases, I noticed that when djembefolas actually played they did not play these solo phrases but rather improvised using certain recurring themes. Over many years of teaching, learning and observing I developed my own unique approach to teaching solo. In addition to teaching the set solo patterns that were passed to me by djembefolas, I started to write down the commonly occurring themes that djembefolas used in improvisations. I have come to call these ‘Solo Rudiments’ and teach these independently of the phrases in which they occur. By teaching beginners to improvise using simple elements I try to get people over the fear of improvisation. In my classes beginners learn to improvise as they learn to play, so that when they are ready to solo for real they do not have the fear that holds many people back. This is a defining feature of my teaching style and people who take my classes regularly come to see solo as just another part of playing.

Throughout this period I practiced every day. I rented a small studio space and played whenever I could. I became obsessed with trying to reproduce authentic sounds…the sharp slap and the deep dry popping tones that djembefolas produced with ease. Many of the exercises that I now teach grew out of this practice regime and I have developed several ‘practice patterns’ that I used to develop my slap /
 tone distinction. I would play these patterns for hours until they became a meditation. Sometimes after 30 minutes or an hour a bit of magic would happen and I’d start to generate the true sounds of the djembe. To this day there is no greater pleasure for me than to produce crystal clear slaps and tones…when I get it right it is as if I am listening to two drums play rather than one. Another thing that became a staple of my practice routine was to play endless echauffements, sometimes for an hour or even two without stopping. I’d play until the slaps, like a ticking clock, blended into the background leaving the tones to emerge as melody. I call these exercises ‘Melodies in Tones’ and believe them to be one of the most powerful exercises in developing good technique.

Through developing my own practice routine, as well as through teaching and learning over many years, I have developed a set of exercises that I have distilled into the lessons on this website. They embody my teaching style and my philosophy of djembe and dundun. Unlike other teachers I do not only teach fixed patterns, accompaniments and solo but also practice patterns that are my own creations, exercises that are derived from listening to djembefolas (such as the melody in tones) and, most importantly, improvisation. This last aspect is the most neglected and, in my opinion, the most important if one is to truly express oneself on djembe. In addition I try to provide lessons on certain aspects that are ‘mysteries’ among djembe students. Thus I teach how to switch between different pulses in 12/8 time…or how to turn a syncopated kenkeni pattern from on-beat to off-beat in your head without missing a beat…or how to play that tricky slappy-flammy-rolly thing that you always hear in Wassolonka but no-one ever explains. I try to provide instruction in the areas that I found lacking when I was learning.

This journey of learning and teaching is a constant source of wonder and frustration and sometimes I think I will never achieve my goal…at other times I feel so close I can touch it. Sometimes after an hour practicing on my own I achieve 99% consistency and great quality sounds…other times my left hand desserts me and I feel a million miles away. But throughout it all I keep practicing, learning and teaching and as I learn I pass on that knowledge as best I can.
This website represents my knowledge distilled into lessons on the key areas. Along the way I try to pass on a little of my philosophy of practice, of solo, of meditation and focus and in so doing hope to make the journey a little less stressful and a little more beautiful for those that come after me.

Good luck and welcome to the journey!