Riverfolk Festival 2010 Drum and Gyil Jam

A spontaneous jam on a warm sunny day at the Riverfolk Music Festival in Manchester MI Saturday 8 August 2010.

Ameyaw Kofi was playing djembe, Ai Yumiba on a bigger drum (which I don't know what it was called), someone else on cowbell and later the luna (AKA talking drum)--listen for a drum that bends in pitch around 6:00 minutes into the recording--and I was invited to play on gyil (you can hear Ameyaw ask if I want want to play the xylophone in the beginning). Gyil is a Ghanan xylophone that's probably a progenitor of the marimba. Ameyaw and Ai are excellent musicians, so was the guy on cowbell/talking drum except I didn't hear him very well. All of these are Ghanian instruments (except perhaps for the cowbell).

I took this photograph of Ameyaw playing djembe on a Canon Powershot A20 digital camera minutes before the jam. At foreground is the Gyil which he made and tuned in G pentatonic so that it would be compatible with most Western musical instruments (he sometimes plays it with his band Sunkwa). That's the instrument I'm playing in this recording. The white dots on the gourds are traditionally made with spider web silk, but he used parts of envelopes when making it in the U.S. Ameyaw's playing on a Djembe, and Ai is finishing a gulp of water before returning to a round drum that I know not its name. I think I had just put down my camera when Ameyawa invited me to play.

This jam was my first time ever trying out the instrument as well as playing it with other people. I don't think I've ever played a xylophone or marimba in a jam before either. Anyhow, it was fun! When we finished my upper body and circulatory system were very well exercised. You can hear me slow down after my first spurt of notes as I had already used up much of my ATP (look it up under cellular/microbiology, it's about energy) reserves driving and walking to the festival earlier in the day.

This was recorded on an olympus VN-6200PC digital voice recorder which I think was placed in my pocket or about three feet away from the Gyil. It does not record in stereo, and for some reason I hear random clicks in this recording. The lower ranged notes of the Gyil were drowned out even as I was playing, and some may be too low to hear clearly in this recording as I was exploring the instrument. Even still, I enjoyed the jam and am glad that it all turned out fairly well. Thanks for reading and listening!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Djembe
• Drum
• Gyil
• Cowbell
• Luna
• Talking Drum
• Ghanian Musical Instruments
• Ameyaw Kofi
• Ai Yumiba
• Ian Tran
• Unknown Percussionist
• Manchester Michigan
• Riverfolk Music Festival 2010
• Jam
• Music
• Ghanian Xylophone
• Olympus
• VN-6200PC