The Doum

The Doum is the bass stroke. This stroke creates a deep and powerful sound from the belly of the drum that is undoubtedly the core beat of any rhythm. When the Doum lands on the skin of the drum, it bounces and causes the skin to vibrate, creating sound waves that repeatedly shoot off the inner walls of the drum; getting stronger and stronger. Eventually, these sound waves fly out of the back of the drum, creating a deep and powerful sound.

The Doum is the first dominant hand stroke that we will cover. The dominant hand strokes are the strokes that are played with your main playing hand.

Technique #

Keeping your four fingers closed, but not tight, strike the middle of the darbuka. The top two parts of each of your fingers should land on the middle of the darbuka skin, and the palm of your hand should land on the darbuka’s metal rim. As soon as your fingers have made contact, they should bounce off the drum and pull away immediately. The fingers should not linger on the drum.

The sustain #

A key point to mention here is that the Doum is characterised by its sustain. The sustain is the elongated sound you will hear after you play the Doum that should last at least one second. You will know that your Doum technique is getting better when you can consistently create a long sustain.

The palm’s support #

The Doum strikes the skin using the fingers. However, the fingers themselves are a relatively weak part of your hand. The best way to add power and depth to your Doum is to strike the skin with the fingers while your palm lands on the metal head for support. The palm should make firm contact with the metal head to provide the most support possible. Focus on trying to get the palm and fingers to land at precisely the same time to add power to your Doum.

Practice Tips #

There is a methodology that can be followed when practising the dominant hand strokes, and this methodology was taught to me early on in my studies. When you practice, practice by playing a Doum every two seconds. If you imagine a clock going tick-tock, you should play a Doum on every tick. The reason for this is that you need to allow time to hear and critique your own mistakes. If you play a stroke and you play another one straight after it, you won’t have given yourself time to stop and think about the stroke you just played. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How long did the sustain last?
• Which parts of my fingers landed?
• Did my palm land?
• Did the Doum sound flat or bassy?
• Was that the best Doum I’ve played so far?
• Etc.

By asking yourself these questions and considering your answers, you will get a better understanding of how well you are doing.

A key point to mention here is that initially, you might not be getting your Doum to sound very good, but if you follow the technique tips mentioned, you will probably hit 10% or so of your strokes accurately (albeit by chance). The trick is to identify which Doum you accidentally played which was correct, to recognise that it was correct, to remember the technique you used for that correct Doum, and to try and recreate it. Once you’ve heard a correct Doum enough times, you will know what it’s supposed to sound like, and you will easily be able to reproduce it. If this is the first percussion instrument you’re learning, it will take slightly longer to get this right. However, I’m 100% confident that with a few hours of practice, you will master it quickly.

Common Mistakes #

There are some common Doum mistakes you can watch out for. The result of these mistakes is almost always a Doum which is flat and without any bass. If you feel like your Doum falls into this category, be sure to read through this section carefully.

Palm not landing #

Without your palm landing, the fingers have no support. Fact. You will likely cause your fingers to hurt/bleed because of the lack of support to your fingers, and you won’t be able to produce a good, strong sound from your Doum. The palm is the key to the Doum, as it allows the Doum to strike with solidity and power. Ensure that your palm lands firmly on the metal head of the darbuka.

Playing too far in the middle #

A common mistake – playing too far in the middle of the skin. If you strike the skin of the darbuka with your whole hand, including your palm (i.e. your palm lands on the skin), you might be setting yourself up to fail. While initially, this will create a slightly better sound than what you’ve been doing before, the reality is that the effect of the palm landing on the skin is that the Doum will not boom properly because the fleshy part of your palm has killed all of the sounds. Think about how the Doum is created; it relies on the vibration of the skin to create the sound waves that get sent through the hollow section inside the drum. If you land your palm on the skin, you will reduce how much the skin is vibrating, and therefore reduce how strong your Doum sounds. Ensure that your palm doesn’t land on the skin.

Not enough finger landing #

I’ve seen this commonly with people who aren’t using the correct hand position when making contact with the darbuka. If you are only landing the tips of your fingers and not two whole parts, you will not be able to create a powerful sound. The resultant effect will “strike” too much, creating a very hard sound that sounds like you’re smacking the skin, rather than a deep and bassy Doum. Ensure that you land the correct parts of your fingers. Review which parts of the hand should be landing on the skin to understand this issue further.

Not bouncing properly #

Two issues can occur here with the bounce of the Doum:

The first issue is that you don’t bounce at all, and your hand falls flat on the darbuka skin. If your hand falls flat on the skin, you will not allow the skin to vibrate and therefore create a strong Doum. You must bounce the hand away from the skin after making contact to “push” the Doum through the body of the drum.

The second issue is bouncing too much and hitting the drum overly hard when you make contact, so much so that you can start to hear a high-pitched sound coming through in the overtones of the Doum. This problem is caused by too much of a “striking” effect on the metal section of the drum, which is what causes the high-pitched overtones. When you hit the drum, you should land your fingers and palm, make contact with the drum, and then bounce the fingers away, resulting in the skin vibrating properly and the Doum being “pushed” through the drum. By hitting the drum with too much force and “attack”, you will reduce the effectiveness of your Doum.

Wrong room #

I’ll be honest; I didn’t notice this as an issue until relatively late in my studies. I was with one of my very close friends, and we were about to perform at an event. It was a small event with some friends, and the room we were in was furnished with Moroccan sofas, which are sofas which sit only a few inches from the floor, so when you sit down you end up sitting almost cross-legged on the floor. The event started, and the Doums on our darbukas just weren’t booming, and we couldn’t work out why! My friend said it was because there were Jinn (evil spirits) in the room, and it became a running joke that every time we performed at that particular venue, our darbukas didn’t work because of the Jinn. It was only when I gained some more experience that I realised that it was just because I was sitting on a sofa and the cushioning on the sofa was blocking the sound! It turns out the venue wasn’t haunted after all…

While I only noticed this quite late on, I have seen that many of my students have encountered this issue fairly early on so I’ve mentioned this early on in this course. For a full understanding of the problem just re-read through the last section of Lesson 2, titled “Space allows sound to travel”. The long and short of it is that if you’re sitting on a bed, sofa, or in front of a heavy curtain etc. you might block the bass sound of your darbuka.

Bad tuning #

This issue is less common on the Doum than on other strokes of the darbuka, but if your tuning isn’t great, or your darbuka is of very low quality, your Doum might not boom properly. Some of the first darbukas I ever owned were from Fez, in Morocco, and the skins were so tight that they didn’t boom properly. I only realised this later on in my journey when I played one that I bought from the internet and realised the apparent difference in quality.