Hand lifting

I'm sure you have all already seen guys like the one in the video that lift hands while performing the solo. I always considered them to be a kind of show-offs, doing something not really connected with the music.


Around a year ago I started to do the same thing spontaneously and today I feel a special pleasure in doing it. I found this is not necessarily connected with an attempt to try to impress the spectator. The one thing it has to do with for sure is BALANCE.
I don't know why, but up until now I couldn't find anyone that shares my thought: balance is one of the most important things in djembe playing. I didn't even manage to find out what this balance is about, but maybe I'll post something about my new findings some other time.

For now I can show you what exercises I have been doing to achieve this spontaneous hand-lifting. If you are still a beginner try to write this down in a sequencer (like Percussion Studio or the like); it might look easy but it's quite hard to be precise enough.

I took a song in a 12/8 measure. This would be a standard accompaignement:
1..2..3..4..1..2..3..4..
s-ts--s-ts-bs-ts--s-ts-b

but I guess it's more advisable to play with duns as I did. Suite yourself.
Then I tried to play this pattern with the hand order written below the pattern ("r" and "l"):
1..2..3..4..1..2..3..4..
t-s--t-s--t-s--t-s-t-s--
r.r..l.l..r.r..l.l.r.r..
t-s--t-s--t-s--t-s-t-s--
l.l..r.r..l.l..r.r.l.l..

Watch out for the pauses and be careful about the hand order - specially after the first four pairs. In the second line the order is reversed. Play the two lines together. The most important thing: don't help yourself with "flapping" - see older posts about it.

After mastering this it shouldn't be difficult to get ideas for similar, but more complex patterns.