Untitled - Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra

Spoken Hand
Percussion Orchestra
Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra
230 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
www.spokenhand.org
This project is partially supported by
a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by the Vira I. Heinz
Endowment; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts, a state agency; and the Pew
Charitable Trusts; and administered
by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
This brochure was supported in part
by the Pennsylvania Council on the
Arts, a state agency funded by the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and
the National Endowment for the Arts,
a federal agency.
Send email to [email protected] or call
215-923-5678 or 215-990-7277 for more information.
Educational Brochure
Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra
(Spoken Hand for short) links the past
and the present, the sacred and the secular with a symphonically textured fusion
of traditional and contemporary drumming and choral compositions to forge
an entirely original realm of sound.
Spoken Hand is a traditional hand
drumming ensemble which unifies four
percussion batteries into one distinct
voice: North Indian tabla, Afro-Cuban
bata, Brazilian samba and West African djembe.
Drums in Melody
Education
Workshops
The ensemble offers a variety of programs that are ideal for the concert hall or the classroom, and appeal to a
learning audience of all ages and levels of experience. We
encourage educators and programmers to contact us. We
are happy to work with you to design a program that fits
your needs.
To discuss long term residencies and programming plans
call 215-923-5678 or 215-990-7277. You can also send
email to: [email protected].
I. FULL ENSEMBLE AUDITORIUM PRESENTATION
90 minutes * All Ages * All levels of Experience
This engaging program features a high-energy performance, followed by a demonstration that introduces the
audience to each of the four batteries, their unique instruments and sonic qualities, and the cultural history of drumming in each tradition. A question and answer session follows the presentation.
II. SINGLE BATTERIE CLASS OR RESIDENCY
90 minutes * All Ages * All levels of experience
In an interactive, in-depth classroom setting, participants
are exposed to the various players and instruments of one
batterie, learning about the music and history of that tradition. Students explore making and hearing music with
company members. They learn the rhythms and textures
of each instrument and how this batterie fits into the ensemble in its entirety.
Education
Workshops
III. MASTER CLASS / WORKSHOP
90 minutes * Intermediate to Advanced drumming students
This workshop is offered for percussion students and performers. The program allows participants to experience the thrill
of playing in an ensemble and to learn specific techniques of
each tradition under the guidance of the batterie leader.
To discuss long term residencies and programming plans call
215-923-5678 or 215-990-7277. You can also send email to:
[email protected].
More than Rhythm
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Hands on multicultural
experience
• Compositional material
from Spoken Hand repertoire
as well as compositions that
manifest during the teaching
process
• Rudimentary playing
techniques
• The dynamics of ensemble
playing
• Traditional chants and
rhythmic recitations from the
four cultures that Spoken
Hand represents
Participate
If you want to bring Spoken Hand to your school
or institution, significant support grants may be
available to presenters through the PennPAT
program.
Call 215-496-9424 or go to www.pennpat.org
for more information.
What is a Batterie?
AFRO-CUBAN BATA: The bata drum originated in the Yoruba empire (a region of
the country now called Nigeria) and later
traveled to Cuba and the United States. It
is used in Yoruba ceremonial music. The
rhythms are directed to the Orishas, deities
of the Yoruba religion. Each of the drummers traditionally belonged to the sacred
order of Anya. The bata batterie has three
drums, each with two heads: okonkolo (the
child), a small drum which keeps the pulse;
itotelle (the father) carries melody and answers calls; lya (the mother) plays the calls
and solos and is the largest drum. The cajon
drums are also played by the batterie. This
family consists of the tumba, segunda and
quinto. They were originally wooden fish
crates and were played on the waterfront
by the dockworkers. The members of the
bata batterie are Ishmael Jackson, John
Wilkie, and Kenneth Fauntleroy.
It is the French word for a drumming section. Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra
is organized into four batteries: Afro-Cuban
bata, Brazilian samba, North Indian tabla,
and West African djembe.
Bata
Djembe
WEST AFRICAN DJEMBE: The djembe is a West African wooden drum played largely on the coastal
areas that includes present day Mali, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea. These countries were
once a part of the old Mali Empire hundreds of years ago. The djembe shape originated from the mortar
in which grain was pounded in African villages. It is thought to have originated in Mali and was played
for religious ceremonies. The Malenke people of Guinea and in particular the Ballet African and National
Dance Troupe of Guinea are credited with popularizing the djembe in the West. Essential to the djembe
batterie are the three low register drums played with sticks that carry the melodic foundation. The kenkeni
is a small double-headed drum also made of wood and is accompanied by a bell. It is the timekeeper of
the ensemble and covers the high tone. The sangba is a slightly larger drum that has a profile similar to
the kenkeni. It covers the mid-range. The jun jun is the bass drum of the ensemble and covers the lowest
register. It is often made from a 55 gallon metal can. Members of the djembe batterie are Daryl Kwasi
Burgee, Steve Jackson, and Omar Harrison.
BRAZILIAN SAMBA: The most popular form of music
and dance in Brazil is the samba. Derived from semba,
a musical tradition from the southern African country
Angola, samba was originally introduced into Brazilian
culture by enslaved Africans and evolved over many
years into several regional traditions played today
throughout the country. Spoken Hand’s samba batterie is grounded in a number of these traditions. Samba Batucada is typically played during the carnivals in
the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The music and dance are
part of a lavish cultural celebration featuring multi-person “samba schools”, adorned in elaborate costumes
and ornamentation. Typically played in groups of several hundred drummers, this style of samba features
Samba
an eclectic mix of instruments: the agogô (double bell),
apito (whistle), caixa de guerra (snare drum), surdo (bass
drum), tamborim (small frame drum), chocalho/ganza
(shaker), cuica (friction drum), reco-reco (scraper), and
the repinique (high tom drum). Bloco Afro is a style of
popular reggae-like samba rhythm, which developed
in the northeastern state of Bahia during the 1970’s to
honor African heritage and history. It was used as a tool
to fight social injustice in Brazilian society and typically
features crackling grooves on the repinique, caixa, and
timbau (tall hand drum), and running bass lines on the
surdo. Samba De Roda is a rural circle dance form, accompanied by call and response singing, set to the atabaque (conga), pandeiro (tambourine), agogô, and hand
claps. Capoeira is a martial art/dance form also accompanied by call and response song. Originally practiced
by enslaved Africans to develop fighting skills and agility
for self defense, the music is played with the berimbau/
caxixi (bow and basket rattle), pandeiro, atabaque, recoreco and agogô. Ijexá is a secular and religious rhythm
derived directly from the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. Instruments include the agogô, atabaque and xekerê (beaded gourd rattle). Various wood blocks, gongs,
whistles, rattles made of seeds, pods and nutshells, and
the pau-de-chuva (rain stick), as well as other small percussion instruments are used to simulate the sounds of
the rain forest in the samba tradition. The members of the
samba batterie are Alex Shaw, Joseph Bryant, and Ron
Howerton.
NORTH INDIAN TABLA: Tabla consists of two tunable drums covered with
goatskin heads. The higher pitched drum has a wooden shell and is called
tabla (or dayan). The low register drum has a shell commonly made of
copper, brass or clay and is called baya (or bayan). Tabla (descendant of
the much older two-headed pakhawaj), are the predominant drums of the
North Indian (Hindustani) classical music tradition. The rhythms of this vast
tradition have evolved over 4000 years from the temples to the royal courts
and to the concert stage. Tabla normally accompanies instrumentalists,
vocalists and dancers of both classical and folk styles, but over the past fifty
years has also been played as a solo instrument. Perhaps the most lyrical
Tabla
of all hand drums, tabla has an oral language
all its own. Each of the more than fifteen different strokes has its own corresponding Sanskrit
syllable. There are innumerable talas (rhythmic
cycles) in the North Indian music system. Just
as melodies are made up of notes, talas are
made up of many bols (strokes). Students of
tabla spend years studying and practicing with
a guru of the tradition in order to gain mastery
of the instrument. Members of the tabla batterie are Lenny Seidman, Radha Marinelli, and
Mike Nevin.