Spontaneous music at my workshop in Dakar, Senegal - Modou Gaye on left

The Goethe Institut in Dakar invited me to put on a workshop about
building the musical instruments described in my webpage, mainly my "hank-drums", made from propane tanks. See http://www.DennisHavlena.com . What an excellent, wonderful time I had there. Here's a short video from the workshop, at the Baye Fall village along the ocean in Dakar. Top-notch hang player Modou Gaye (left) was in the workshop & he and I were making a 5-note "bass hank-drum" from a propane tank. We'd just tuned the highest note to the proper pitch in order to play bass along with the 8 other normally-pitched hank-drums built & to our surprise, the remaining 4 notes sang nicely in tune with the first one AS IS! We have no idea what scale this bass hank-drum is tuned to, but it sounds good, so we left it alone. More videos coming. I just returned home yesterday, Nov 12, 1011 after three incredibly fun & interesting weeks in Senegal.
PS: please try to ignore the hand-sander you can hear in this video -- fellow next to us was making ebony tuning pegs for the cookie-tin kora he was making.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• dakar
• senegal
• africa
• hank
• drum
• hang
• modou
• gaye
• dennis
• havlena
• workshop
• goethe
• institut
• baye
• baay
• fall
• sufi
• muslim
• dhavlena

[molike]

Man, the guy who comes in with the saw(?) at 00.20 has no sense of rhythm at all

[sone519]

wicked Jam!!!! The guy with the kazoo needs to stop!

[MrHoopler]

Could those drums be played with mallets as well?  Very original instrument the guy has with the glorified thumb piano boombox!

[earthjustice01]

The Hank drum rules! It's going to take over the world. Country by country.

[lescaneiorianni]

loool ça va faire du tort au hang ça ! bravo ! djadjef fall ;0)

[imagineye]

This sooooo warms my heart! Awesome stuff Dennis..... :)

[uhrnet]

Dennis, we miss you at Espace creative Ibrahima Bay Fall! Come back soon!

[oeterke]

Awesome Dennis! So so cool :))

[harkness]

Man, that looks fun. Incredible jam session!

[Sailrite2009]

That idea about LP gas tanks has come a long way from Tryban Road! The jumbo luan kalimba and grinder accompaniment can't be beat! It's a magical groove from Mullett to Modou Gaye! Walk in Peace!