Basic Ornamentation

Ornamentation is the act of making something prettier. As such, we can make our darbuka rhythms prettier by ornamenting them!

While Level 2 of the programme goes much deeper into ornamentation, we are going to introduce some primary forms of ornamentation to our repertoire, by utilising the Ka stroke that we have just learnt.

The Ka stroke is known as an ornamentative stroke, because it is almost exclusively used for ornamentation, and very few rhythms use the Ka for rhythmic emphasis. Let’s look at how we can ornament the rhythm that we’ve just learnt, the Heavy Sa’idi!

Adding ornaments to the Heavy Sa’idi #

Let’s get started, the ornamented version of the Heavy Sa’idi we are about to learn looks as follows:

Now, upon first glance, that is quite a complicated rhythm! We’ve added four notes into the rhythm we were playing previously, and the last section is relatively advanced to play. Nevertheless, I’m confident you will be able to play this rhythm.

For us to play this rhythm, let’s break it down into some more accessible versions so we can progress up to this rhythm. Since this is one of the first rhythms we are learning, we’re going to break this down a lot more than we usually would, so if you’re finding it easy, you might get through this lesson quite quickly! If you’re struggling a little, don’t worry. Take your time, practice, and it will come.

Progression 1 – Adding a single Ka #

In our first progression, we are going to start by taking the standard Heavy Sa’idi and adding a single Ka.

I’d like you to get used to walking this rhythm also (like we did with the basic Heavy Sa’idi). However, there is a slight twist in this scenario. I want you to split the rhythm into two distinct sections. The first section is Doum – Doum, and the second section is Doum – Doum – Ka – Tek. Walk the rhythm out like this:

Note that on the 3rd and 8th footsteps, you should stay silent and not say anything. After a few minutes or so of walking out this rhythm, you should have it memorised. Remember to think of the two separate sections, as we will use these later on when building up our rhythm.

Once you are confident with saying the rhythm and understand the two sections, play it on the darbuka! I’m confident that with some practice, you’ll get it.

Progression 2 – Joining our two sections #

Once you’ve mastered the first progression, it’s time to move on to the second progression. This progression involves joining the sections you have previously practiced and feel confident with. Let’s first look at the drum tab for the next progression:

For this progression, we are going to join the sections we learnt last time with a Ka. As follows:

Section 1 (Doum Doum) → insert a Ka → Section 2 (Doum Doum Ka Tek)

It might help to walk out the rhythm as you did for the previous progression. You can find the notes below:

If you can master saying this rhythm, and you’re comfortable with it, give it a shot on the darbuka! This one should drop into place nicely if you’ve gotten this far.

Progression 3 – The Teka #

Congratulations on making it to the final progression. In this progression, we will look at the “Teka” stroke that needs to be played at the end of the rhythm, to join the end of this rhythm with the start of the next rhythm. This is the fastest series of strokes we have played so far, a “Tek Ka”, or “Teka”. The drum tab looks like this:

As you can see, the end of the rhythm contains a Tek and a Ka. However, these have some previously unseen characteristics:

• The Tek is in lower case and is not highlighted. This is because it’s an ornamentative Tek, and hence should be played more lightly than a standard Tek.
• The Tek and Ka are very close together – and they are played immediately after each other (at twice the speed that you play the Doum Doum!). To help us with this, we will refer to them as a “Teka”, rather than a “Tek Ka”.

Mastering this Teka stroke is essential to play this rhythm properly. For us to learn this Teka, let’s take a little break from the Heavy Sa’idi rhythm and study a more straightforward phrase:

This is a phrase that needs to be played multiple times to feel it properly. Note that it only lasts one note, which means that we repeat on every beat. It sounds like this:

TekaDoum – TekaDoum – TekaDoum.

To internalise this rhythm, I’d like you to walk the rhythm out, just as we’ve done previously. This time though, you’re going to do something slightly different:

• On each footstep, you should be saying Doum.
• Before each Doum, there should be a Teka.
• The Teka and the Doum should be so close together that it’s almost as if it were one word: TekaDoum.
• So, every time you take a step, you should say TekaDoum, while ensuring that your foot only actually touches the ground when you say the Doum part of TekaDoum.
• Try and walk for a few minutes while saying this phrase! By the end of this exercise, you should understand how this TekaDoum is used in action.
• After you’ve walked this exercise, try and play the rhythm on your darbuka. TekaDoum, TekaDoum, TekaDoum, etc.

From this exercise, you should notice that the Teka is directly connected to the Doum, even though the Doum is at the beginning of the next line. This is precisely the case in our Heavy Sa’idi Rhythm:

At the end of the rhythm, we are going to play a Teka which leads directly into the Doum of the repeated rhythm. Let’s play this rhythm in sets of four so that we can get used to joining the rhythms together with this “Teka” sound:

Notice how the 16th beat (the very last beat on the bottom line) finishes with just a Tek. This is because we aren’t going to join this final rhythm onto anything, so we don’t need our Teka.

There we have it, practice this ornamented Heavy Sa’idi and feel proud that you can play such a complicated rhythm! It’s no easy accomplishment!

Remember, if you’re struggling, slow the tempo right down on the tab above and play along.