I'm going to play duns from now on. That's what I decided this month after quite a few jam sessions where I preferred to stay on the duns instead on the djembe. Maybe my preference has something to do with the fact that there's always been a shortage of dun players around here. I don't feel like playing the djembe any more if there is only one dun player because this usually means he/she is just going to hold the rhythm and that is certainly not enough. Djembe could be the one that holds the rhythm, but duns have to make music. I realise this statement is a little ridiculous, but I'm just saying it because I want to emphasise the importance of the expression of the duns.
O.K., so I started to practice duns (I really started doing that some months ago). I immediately started practicing the difficult patterns - the ones I always had troubles with. These are the ones where the bell is played indifferently from the bass. And of course I started with the rhythms I love most. See the entry about 6/8 and 12/8 fusion.
Here's Kakilambe, which actually has only one hit on the dununba where the bell is not hit at the same time, but if you listened to dununba only (without bell and kenkeni) you could interpret the song as being 6/8, which makes it difficult to play and make variations while holding the bell.
(B for dununba, K for open kenkeni, k for closed kenkeni, x for bell)
