 Welcome to the Drum History Podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Colin O'Donohoe, aka the world maestro, to talk about the role of percussion across musical genres in different cultures. Colin, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to get into this. Sure. Why don't we just start with a little bit about you and how you sort of gained this knowledge and then we can hop into really what that means, the role of percussion across various cultures. Sure. Well, a little bit on me is I am a professional drummer. That's where I got my start. I did go to college and I got a degree in jazz studies. So I had, by the time I got my degree and I had been performing a lot professionally, I felt like I really knew a lot and I thought I was an expert on drums. And one of the things about me is I'm constantly curious. And I think one of the beautiful things about music is if you're constantly curious, there's always lots more you can learn. Really? And I've also very, I've just naturally interested in history and I was naturally interested in cultures and the music of those places. So I had started studying drums that were beyond the scope of the West and the United States. In undergrad, I took jambay lessons with a master drummer from Senegal who generally did Sabar drumming. But we started on the jambay and just getting tones. And I always, I'm a firm believer, a traditionalist, I don't know is you need to get a good tone on your instrument and you need to respect the instrument you're playing. Before you go into the flashy, cool fills and amazing little tricks that you can do on a drum, you have to first get to know the drum, get to know the proper way to get a tone out. And if you're lucky enough to find a master and they're patient enough to watch you with your hand shapes and playing to get the tones out, then you're in a good place. And it can take six months or more to get a decent tone out of a drum before moving on. So that's a little bit about the kind of how it got started. And I had been raised listening to music from around the world because my father would play music every day and I would just hear lots of stuff. So I may have been a little pre-programmed or pre-wired for this kind of a jump. And then after college, I got even more interested in music starting with Irish music and Chinese music. And then from there, I got broader and broader and more curious. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. And that was about 20 years ago. So now we're in 2020. So I've had a lot of time to travel around the world to both record and interview musicians that have spent their lives focusing on their particular style, on their tradition. And when you just let them talk and like you're doing with this show, when you let them talk and you hear what they're saying and then you hear what they're playing, you know, you get a really good idea of where they're coming from, why they're playing what they're playing and why they're not playing something that you think should be there. Because we always come into music with our own bias. And so we have our ears that we've developed over how many years we've been listening to music. So we have things that we kind of as a listener want to hear. So it's just been a really interesting time. Yeah, that's really cool. And just two things come to mind there. First, like where you're saying taking, let's say, like you said, six months to get the good tone out of a jambay. You kind of take that for granted where it's like, you know, anyone can go and just buy like a, you know, there's nothing against them. I think they're great drums, but like a RIMO jambay that you see everyone has. And you just start playing and you think, oh, this sounds good. But there's like with anything, there's there's masters there that can get these just amazing tones just by moving a little bit and playing it differently. So that's really cool. And then like you said, we have our own biases as in this case, as Americans where for us, our history and our culture as drummers really goes back to our origins are really is like jazz musicians and jazz drummers. That's about, you know, obviously we have marching and we have snare drum, but I'm talking drum set, trap, all that stuff. So that's our history and our origins. But other cultures go back way further and have, as I think we're going to talk about here shortly, the different role really, which is what we're talking about, as not being so driving and Jean Krupa and, you know, going nuts kind of stuff. It's not all about the drums in many cultures. So exactly. And I think, you know, maybe the easiest launching point for a music that people have probably heard is Irish music, because everyone is Irish on St. Paddy's Day at least. So at least one day a year, they've heard some Irish music and they've probably seen it in some movies and the Irish drum, the prominent drum in Irish music is called a baron and it's a frame drum and they have a tipper that is what they call their mallet. And baron players can play very intricate, fast notes with the two ends of their stick. They can play six tuplets and they can play them quickly. And with the backhand, they can change the pitch. So it's a pretty cool instrument and it's something that your listeners may have seen or heard before, but what they may not know is that the baron is not there like the drum set. It's not there to play a bass drum type sound and a snare drum type sound to outline the measure and outline where you are. It's to outline the phrasing of the jig or of the reel that you're listening to. So it's actually got some similarities to tabla in that the drum can change its pitch. So it can match with what the, if it's in the key of G here in the key of D, which are the major ones in Irish music, it can outline tonic and dominant and it can also slide down to dominant if it's helping to resolve a chord. So there's things that a baron player can do and great baron players just do it just by nature. It just feels so natural that you don't think they're even thinking about, oh, we have to resolve this chord here. They just know, okay, we're going back to the top where we should resolve this thing. And you might hear that baron slide down and it's a cool sound they do, but what they're not doing is they're not going boom, pop, boom, pop. Come on guys, come on. Let's stick with this tempo. Come on, come on. What they're really doing is they're really, I don't know, maybe third tier in terms of importance and baron players get lots of dirty looks from the other session players when they start to overstep their bounds and they do start to try to push this groove. I've been performing Irish music for over 10 years and I've seen plenty of a dirty look going towards the baron player like, hey, you're doing too much and then they have to back off a bit. So that's one style where you may be even listening to it and you think, you know, why don't we have more of a drum groove? And with Americans, there's been some American bands like Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphy's and stuff that I think noticed, hey, there's no driving groove here. Let's put one in. And then it was wildly successful in America because Americans were also missing that feel. So to make it marketable to Americans, they put drum set in and granted those bands are cool. I have, you know, I'm not in any way trying to disparage what I'm trying to say is they were pretty creative. They realized the missing thing for their audience. They put it in and presto, you know, they're very popular and they did it really well. Do people not like that though in Ireland? Do they think that's kind of like a, I wouldn't call it cultural appropriation. I mean, I guess it kind of is. Well, it is. Yeah. No, I think you nailed it. I think it is. It's absolutely that. And do people, I don't know, I've been to Ireland enough times. I don't think that they, I think they see it as kind of a natural evolution of their music in it. And it, you know, it serves as a gateway. If people like those bands, you know, they're more apt to check out the chieftains or some of the more, the very popular groups that have done it in the traditional sense. I mean, even the chieftains are experimental, but they also play it in the very traditional way. So groups like that, you know, it serves its purpose. It entertains one group and it at least gives people that chance to be a gateway into learning more about the genuine thing or the original thing. Yeah. But that's interesting. I'm in Cincinnati, I'm right on the border of, you know, right into Kentucky and there's tons of bluegrass music around here. And it's kind of similar where there's no drums. Yes. And bluegrass is the cousin of Irish music and exactly great bluegrass music will groove, really groove. And it has nothing to do with drums. It has to do with the rhythm guitar and the other string instruments. And they are bluegrass, great bluegrass that the players have to be so together and united. And together they establish the pulse and it drives and it's great to listen to. It's really fun. And you don't even notice that there's no drummer just, you know, outlining that groove every measure. Yeah, there's like a tick, tick, tick, tick. I mean, and bluegrass players, when you see them, just like you said, playing well together, it is like mind boggling to have these string players just creating such, I don't know. For me, it just, for me, it makes my heart feel great. When you hear great music, it just makes you feel really great. And, you know, drums don't have to be there. And as a drummer, it can be like, wait, wait, wait, you mean you don't need me? I know. But it's just not right for that style, you know? So we just don't do it. And so, exactly, I think bluegrass is a great one to bring up. Yeah. I had a, at my wedding, we had a bluegrass band instead of like a traditional band. They're here in Cincinnati. They play around in the country with the tillers. And there was no lack of dancing. There was no lack of movement. And there was no drums. Yes. So, you know, I think we bring that up just to enlighten everyone that's listening that while drums are exceptionally important in so many styles of music, it's good to always be a listener first. As a drummer, the compliments I've gotten in my career, and I think one of the reasons I've been able to have a career for so long, is I'm always first listening. And as any performer of any instrument, especially styles that aren't all written down and you just have your part to play, is you have to listen. And you have to listen to what does the music need? What can I provide to help that need? So, for drummers to listen to bluegrass and realize you can groove without it, it's a nice experience so that you can then take that back and say, okay, so every time I go into a gig, I don't have to assume that I'm the one that's going to just dominate and enforce the time. I may be there as ornamentation. I may be there to enhance an articulation in a melodic passage or harmonic chord progression. I might just be there to help with the articulation. I add attack to the chords or I add attack to the melody. But I'm not the melody or I'm not the harmony, but I'm helping to make an ensemble sound. Some of those string instruments or horn, they might lack the sharp attack at the beginning of their notes that we can add. We can provide that so that we help create an ensemble sound where our snare drum hitting or our ride cymbal hitting on the bell it provides a very sharp attack to let the note that they're playing have an even brighter start. And then as our attack dies down in the sound, the notes are continuing to ring out. So it's just good to go into a situation and be listening and always listening to what the players are doing, to what's working, what's not working, and just be able to lay off if you need to or if it needs more, you give it. But just try always entering into your session with that open mind of I'm going to listen unless they've told you ahead of time we need you to drive this, then just go in and listen. And the musicians you're playing with will know if you're listening to them. They will know if you're helping them with the phrasing and if you're, say, outlining the form and it makes it easier for them to transition from one to the next, they will greatly appreciate it and the music overall will benefit. The concert itself or the recording session will just go better. So I think that's why we're trying to talk about the role across the world so we can get a better concept of who we are and how we're going to attack our performing. Absolutely. And I think just not to derail the conversation at all but going in a global, you know, looking at this globally too. So you said it's pronounced a boron, is that correct? Yeah. And so that's a frame drum. And I did an episode a way back about female drummers and we talked about how there was a lot of old, very like ancient statues of women holding frame drums and that just kind of led my mind to how the frame drum itself is a very, very ancient drum that is just found all around the world in many different cultures. So it's just kind of cool how each culture, like let's say in Ireland, they take it and do their own thing with it. That's just a very neat historical drum. Yes, and you're right, frame drums are everywhere. I was in Mongolia and I was able to see a shaman and the shaman has a frame drum that they use and it's a hexagon shape and they're always playing in three. They're always playing jatata, jatata, jatata, jatata, jatata. And they're playing three because the number three is very significant in their religious and their cultural beliefs. The number three is a sacred number. And so while they're playing this and while it's providing the ambience and the energy for the session and what the shaman's going to do, it's just really bringing home that three, the number three. And it's cool just with that little frame drum and it's not complicated, but it's extremely important what they're doing. What's the stick called? In Ireland, it's called a tipper. In Mongolia, I don't know. But oh, in Mongolia, the shaman was using a leg bone of a woman who had died giving birth. And I don't even know if that's legal in various countries, but that was what they made his drumstick out of. Oh my God, human leg bone. Yeah, it was a little creepy to me. I thought, how does he get that if he had to travel or tour? I mean, it's a human remain. Can you bring that on your flight? I don't know. It was a little... But that's what they do and that's what they've been doing. So sometimes, I guess, even that is something we would never in America consider doing. But to them, the drum skin was made from a wolf and each piece of how they did it was meaningful to the performance. So they had this bone and they blessed it or whatever. And every ingredient was actually important to the performance. Yeah, so a little intense. So the frame itself, that make of the drum, that type of drum is very globally universal, but I guess the differences would be what you play it with, be it the tipper in Ireland or a woman's leg bone for this example. And then the skin can be different. Obviously, there's different animals. So, man, that's cool. And the drums themselves, as you start to look around the world, drums are in every culture and they use the elements that are in their natural surroundings. So when you see wooden drums like the Gembe, you are going to be in a place that has a natural forest and access to trees. When you're looking at clay drums and things up in the Middle East, they're more ceramic, they may have used a metal, because they don't have trees, so they don't make the drums out of wood. And as you go around the world, you find that they traditionally will use their drums made out of whatever they can find. And then it's been like that for a very, very long time. They haven't changed. I mean, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And I would say another interesting example, as we're going into like what drives versus what doesn't, if you look at the music in the Middle East and you look at, say, Turkish-style drumming versus their neighbor of Iran and the Persian music, where they use a tomb back. And in Turkey, they'll use Doomback or they call it Darbuka. You start to see some pretty distinct differences in very close neighbors. The tomb back, while it's very similar, it has a softer head. The technique that they use with their fingers is they... I mean, when you watch them, they use all their fingers on it and they'll play extremely virtuosic passages with lots of ghost notes. And those notes aren't there to take over the show. Those notes are there to kind of fill in space and to help the articulation of the classical music that's going on around it. It's also used as a contrast. So if there's a singer who's singing very emotionally and expressive with long legato passages, the drum is there to provide the quick notes and the short notes that keep the interest of the listener going. It does groove, but it doesn't groove the way Americans would think of a rock band or a hip-hop drum loop. It doesn't drive like that, but it does provide lift and it should when it's done well. It should lift that singer. It should support that singer to feel free to just go for it and just sing what the song asks of the singer. And then the drummer will support you. I've got your back. Don't worry. We're going to provide. And then in Turkey, you hear... and in Arabic music, you'll hear more of the... some of the very famous drum patterns like the one that goes... And those are more closely resembling what we would hear in America as the drum grooves. And even those though, you won't hear a real strong backbeat. Unless you hear the... That one has a good feel to it. But the others are pretty syncopated. But they're a loop, right? There are two measure phrase and that's what's outlining the drum groove for that style of music. And then you can get into the odd meters of what they're playing. And then in those cases, yes, the drums are grooving. They're outlining that drum beat if it's like... It's like... You know, like in 9-8. Then they're definitely outlining that phrase and they're definitely outlining for the listeners and the dancers and whoever. Okay, here's the twos, here's the three. Here's the twos, here's the three. And provide that lift at the end of a measure of, okay, now we've got three beats. So just remember you'd kind of hang on for a second before we go back into the twos. In that world of the drummers doing this and it's a repeated phrase or the percussionist, I should say, I think with a lot of cultures, correct me if I'm wrong, there's also then multiple other percussive instruments on top of it which help to create a grander sort of rhythm and feel. I think of like in Brazilian music, there's multiple percussionists going. Yeah, I was just in Brazil earlier this year for about six weeks. I played in the Samba Drone with some Samba Schools. Cool. Yeah, some really decent, high level Samba Schools and it was just awesome. And when you go to Brazil and you're in, say, a cafe situation, they'll have about four drummers there and even in the small gigs. And one person could just be on a type of a shaker or a gourd that just goes... And then you've got like, yeah, you've got about four drummers that in America you would say, well, probably someone's just going to put a loop on and then they'll play the guitar over it in the cafe because the cafe doesn't want to pay five people. But in Brazil, it's so important to have those five people and they will say it's not right without it. We need someone on this instrument. We need someone on that. It's not that extra. It's not just something you can take it or leave it. It has to be there. And kind of what you alluded to, I think, is each little piece is important because that's what creates the overall sound. And the overall sound is what they're after. So people are happy to take the job of, okay, I'll go in there and I'll just be playing on some of the go-go bells or I'll be playing just a simpler pattern and someone's got the pandeiro and they're playing more of the groove. But we have all these other sounds that one drum might only play two notes a measure. They might just play a couple eighth notes on the end of four. They might just play something. But without those little ingredients, it doesn't add up to the vibe and the sound that as a Brazilian, they crave. And it would be like having the drummer, okay, yeah, you can play this show tonight but you can't use your hi-hat. So we wouldn't know what to do, right? Yeah, I'd say no. Take my floor, Tom. Yeah, like, come on, that's an essential piece of what we're using. So if you were to say, yeah, your band can have the gig but you have to ask two players, that would be like asking us to get rid of snare drum and hi-hat. I mean, what else? I mean, we can kind of do it. Yeah, but it's not the same. Brazil is known for... I mean, that is their culture. But in talking about going back to Iran and Turkey and the Arabic kind of countries, are there multiple percussionists in that scenario as well? From what I've seen, and I've been living there in Turkey often on since 2017, from what I've seen is it's not it's not exactly similar as what Brazil... I mean, they're happy having a Dombak player or a percussionist. They have multiple layers. But that's probably because the Dombak is already the driving force. And also, even though it's a driving force in their music, it's still not the main thing. The main thing is more the canoone, the balama, and the singer. And all those instruments are very percussive already. The canoone is a percussion instrument. It's like the inside of a piano and it's being plucked. The balama, it's a lute, they're playing in a very percussive way. So, those are already taking over some of the jobs that a drummer would have. And so, that's why you can be a little bit more, I guess, still in the background, but providing that pulse. And culturally, you have to also be open to the fact that the pulse or that groove, it's not equally important in every piece of the world. Groove is something that Americans, we feel is probably one of the, if not the most important thing in the tune is the groove. But that's not the case everywhere. And then sometimes the music is even, it can speed up and it uses rubato. Sometimes it's a little faster and then it's going to slow down. And then it may slow down more. Okay, it's a natural flow of the piece. So it doesn't have to be set to a click track. Because it's going to drop. It's going to go up. So it's also just important not only the role of are we an ornament or are we the driver, but also how important is that groove, how important is it to establish the tempo and stay at that tempo. And then is it acceptable to speed up? Is it actually desirable to speed up? Because these music forms they want to speed up at a certain point. And that's something in America anyway for me, I was trained never to do that. And when I do speed up, you know, you get smacked across the back of the hand with a ruler. Don't do that. But there's other places. Very, very determined and you're doing it like a tempo map and it's like, we're going to speed up for BPM here and then down and it's very unnatural in a way. But remember, it's always about the audience. You're writing a music for an audience. So if the audience is expecting it then that's what we provide and they only expect it because the other masters have done it that way. So when we're in a genre, we're not in a vacuum. We're there with all of our peers, the people that came before us, the people that are playing now. And so it's also what's appropriate for who you're playing for. Yeah. Interesting. I find that and it makes you feel kind of like it questions your talent when like, for me, I'm listening to music from a different culture where clearly it's not the same pulse that we use and I'm trying to bob my head and I'm like, why can't I figure this out? I guess it's just because it's not what we're used to and it's not counting in the same way. This might be a stupid question, but do people, or in Turkey, wherever, are they counting it as they go or you know, sometimes I feel like people view things almost as patterns? I'm really glad you're asking this. It's a really awesome, educated question and it's something I've been, so I really appreciate the question. So the short answer is no, they don't all count it the same. They don't all think of it the same and actually, just to go a little further, they actually think about it quite differently. Now, you're talking about people that were raised from birth, no matter who their parents were, no matter what their jobs of their parents, they were raised hearing these odd meters and they were raised hearing the best, you know, the most famous artists who had with them the best Sidemen and so when they hear it, they are taking a few steps back and they hear it as a phrase, as an overall phrase and the first gigs I had playing Turkish music on Darbuka, Dumbak straight out of college, I was playing in this Turkish ensemble in America, in Arizona and I was on stage and I was always taught to subdivide, right? Subdivide, subdivide, subdivide and you'll be right. And I always look at the music as groups of two and groups of three. So, when you're in odd meters, if you're in 10-8, it's a group of three and a two and a two and a three. Exactly, yeah. You know, something like that, right? Sure. So, I'm up on stage and I'm tapping my foot pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, right? And the Balama player, who was a good friend of mine, he slaps me on the shoulder, it's a small stage and he says, the love of God, stop tapping your foot. He said, you have to, he's like, I don't care if you stop playing, but just listen. And when you can feel it, you can join us again. And this is on stage, there's people dancing only a few feet away from us. And I've got a degree, I've got all these accolades and it's very humbling. But I did exactly what he said, I stopped, I stopped tapping my foot, I stopped playing the Darbuka and I listened. And what I realized from listening is, oh, there's an overall beautiful phrase built in and if I can follow that, I don't have to tap my foot on every single eighth note. I can play and trust my ear and trust the song to be able to play where it's a two and where it's a three. And when I came back in, I played instantly, I'd say twice as good, five times as good as I had in just a few minutes earlier. And I didn't have to tap my foot like a nervous rabbit. So when the west meets the east or the mid east, we bring with us what worked for us in the past. And so what worked for me in the past was okay, if I'm subdividing, then I know I'm on it and I'm accurate. But what they do, if they have, let's talk about nine eight, so if they have a two, two, two, three, they don't think two, two, two, three, they might think in a group of four and then in a group of five. And they may not articulate the ones every time. So if it's one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, one, two, three. For them, the one doesn't always mean the most important dominant note of it's not the beginning always of the phrase. So it might be that the twos are actually more important. And that the twos, if you have the group of four going into the group of five, that fourth note might actually be the most important note. And you play that because that's what the balama or that's what another instrument is playing. And that's what the lift or the signal to the rest of the band were changing chords right now on the next beat. It's similar to drum fills where we'll play a drum fill on the fourth measure going into the next, you know, downbeat of a new phrase. But they might do it in a microcosmic way of within the measure, they're articulating a certain eighth note and they're doing it on purpose because it's telling the rest of the group, okay, now we're changing to a new chord right here, or we're moving up, you know, they'll use macoms. So we're moving in the macom, now we're not here, now we're using this as our tonal center. So the drummers have to be a little bit more tuned into theory, I guess, and have a little bit better ear training in terms of the harmonic progressions, the pitches, and even the use of the scale or the macom within the music. You start to have to know more than just what time signature the piece is in. You also have to know what macom, because the macoms have rules to them. And so you might have to know, okay, we're going to be moving from this to this. And so it takes a little bit more knowledge than just where you're counting. But in terms of counting, I wish I could say that was the last time someone just kind of smacked me on the shoulder and said stop counting like that. But even just about two years ago in Istanbul I was with a small group, a couple Balamas and a Kavall and the guy said a similar thing to me. He said, well, yeah, you're playing right, but don't accent it there. You want to accent here. And it's so not what an American would do. To us it sounds wrong, but to them it sounds wrong when we do it our way. And it's their music. So I don't really, yeah, so I'm wrong. I don't have the cloud to tell them that no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm American, so you have to do it my way. So you start to learn phrasing, which goes even deeper into how to play those meters. So, and again, it's the role of the music, the role of the drum. What are we there for? And if we're there in that style of music to enhance the progression of the tune, then that's what we're there for. And it's a bit like orchestral percussion, right, an orchestral percussion. You're there as the spice and you're there to add some energy from time to time. The timpani may take a nice feature and really groove out for a couple measures. But overall it's a color and the composer was using percussion as a color. And that's also a different approach to how we play the drums. Absolutely. You know, it's funny too because of how it comes naturally to people. I had an experience where through my job working as an audio engineer, I was recording a Moroccan singer. His name is Marwan. I'm going to mess up his last name. Hadoui, H-I-D-A-O-U-I lives in America, but we were recording a song for him and it was kind of funny. We had the producers in Morocco and I had to get him up on FaceTime or Facebook video, whatever it is up on a screen and it was like a patching nightmare. But anyway, this song it was in this rhythm where I'm thinking I'm a drummer and this has given me trouble. Like I can never feel when the chorus is about to start and he nails it every time and he is a non-drummer singer. I mean, he's the singer and then you see so it's like it's so ingrained in the culture where even the people who aren't the percussionists who are the masters of rhythm can feel it. It seems like in the band where I may been playing drums for my whole life and I can't get it after listening to this song for three days. Isn't that humbling? Yeah, it's very humbling. But all it really is it's an indicator to you and to us that there's still more to learn and yeah, you have to sometimes you need to maybe ask him how he's hearing it or how he knows that. And he'll show you what came right before he entered in the measures leading up to it, what he heard that made him know he hits it here. And it's like in Indian music they don't think in terms of measures, they think in terms of cycles and there'll be 32 beat cycles or 64 beat cycles and they may take that 32 beats and break it up into groups of five groups of three or one and then a couple of twos but it's always coming back down on one at the end of that 32 beat cycle and you may wonder how did they know that but they knew that because they started with a plan they started with we know we're gonna do this for this many beats and they know it's gonna hit again at this new thing after a cycle is complete. And it's a different way of listening and it's not how we've been trained. We've been trained to think in terms of measures and it's kind of nice and orderly and we've got our measures and we have our phrases and in America the number four is very important to us. Not only four beats in a measure but four measure phrases or 28 measures, something that's divisible by four. We know that our phrasings are gonna come down somewhere that has something to do with the number four. So we can just feel that and after a while as a drummer we know exactly when a chorus is gonna hit we know when the drummer is gonna play a fill because we can feel those four measure phrases without thinking about it. We just know it feels like we're on the third measure of a phrase and in some cultures like in the Moroccan one, like in India they know where their phrases are too. Their phrases are just very differently shaped than ours. But the overall concept is the same. They know that they're gonna have a phrase they know that there's gonna be a switch at the end of this phrase and they can feel it because that's what they grew up with. That's what they shed on. That's what they were listening over and over again and you know I talk about, yeah it took me six months to get the decent tones on the jembe but when you talk about tabla it could take a year or more to get the tones that you really want on the tabla and with the tabla switching over I guess to India for just a moment the tabla player has to be educated in the raga that they're gonna perform and when us as a Western audience, as Americans listen to the music of India or Iran or Morocco, we take our American ears with us and our American understanding of theory you know that a scale is a set of notes and for us a scale is really just a set of notes there's no rules that come with that scale. If we're playing in A major it doesn't mean at some point in A major we're gonna have to now make D our tonal center for a while and then we'll make E our tonal center and then we're gonna go back so we're not switching from A major up to like D Lydian and then we're not in E mix of Lydian and then back to A. No, we're just in A probably, but in a macam in a macam, in a daska from Iran from the macams, raga daskas not only is a scale a group of notes depending on the raga itself it's also a bit of a set of rules. They're gonna start on this one tonal center at some point they're gonna use the third as their new tonal center and from the tabla's perspective tabla has to be tuned and they will tune their tablas up to the raga itself and then because they can slide on their, they can make those you know those nice sliding notes, they can very beautifully give the roots or they can give the notes that are in that raga and they have to move with the raga as well so they're not only are they outlining a rhythmic phrase and okay here's the chorus because it's not like that that's not their form, what they do is yes they'll outline that they're at the end of their 32 beat cycle and they're going into the new one, but also if it's a new part of the macam then they have to change with the macam, I'm sorry, raga then they'll have to change with their raga up to that new tonal center and outline that and I want to just before we go on, can you and you had, you said raga and then other descriptors for other countries can you define what a raga is so we're all on the same page I don't think I can, but I can tell you that so a raga is a scale of different ones or rags r-a-a-g and so it's a scale and then within that there'll be some points of you're going to go from one up to three, up to five up to four and then back to one I'm just giving an example of one possible permutation that they can do so within that okay we know that it's almost like a composition in itself too so it just goes beyond being a scale I'm not by any means an expert on them but I know enough to be able to perform and to be able to enjoy it but just know that the major difference between scales and rags or daska or makam is a scale is just the notes that's it, it's not any kind of roadmap it's just that the makam may and often is also a roadmap okay we're in this one it behaves this way so it's almost a compositional layout as well as a scale Gotcha, you know when I googled it real quick it's funny because it says it has no direct translation to concepts in the classical European music tradition but it says it's a melodic framework for improvisation melodic mode in Indian classical music so that's kind of the that's what you said basically but it's kind of funny that you were like I don't think I can explain it because it seems like it's like we don't have it it's too tough yeah it's tough to translate that one it's kind of like when you learn another language and you hear this word for something we don't have that word exactly in our language or vice versa they don't have a phrase we have in their language it's kind of like that so I tried to just give the overall as simple as you know explanation as possible is when you see a C major scale you can do anything you want with that but when you get ROGS you can't I mean if you're going to be respectful and do it the way it's meant to be then you have to also understand the other rules that come with the selection of notes Yeah, that makes perfect sense so we've talked about Ireland, Iran, Turkey and other Arabic kind of areas around there in India now I think it'd be cool to maybe talk a little bit about if you have some insight on it like maybe we go to Africa a little bit there's a lot of I mean that's the home of everything so maybe we take a trip to Africa why not I mean if we're talking about drums we kind of have to talk about Africa now Africa the knowledge that I have and after the research and the performing I've done is I can tell you two of the major styles of drumming that Africa has given to the rest of the world is the music that has influenced the Arab music in the very northern parts of Africa and then the western African styles which are more I guess prevalent in our western world and mainly because of slave trade and because western Africans are the ones that came to our country as well as South America and well the Americas overall so let's see so when we talk about Africa let's do West Africa first now their drums first of all are sacred to them the drummers when I saw from my teacher he was in Senegal and he had to get the blessing of the chief and the town to be able to even consider using this one tree to make his drum so they get the blessing that it's okay then they have to go out and perform a ceremony and basically ask the tree if it's okay to make a drum out of it and then they have to wait and if the result is positive then yes they can cut it down they can make their drum if it turns out it was negative and it's not meant to be cut down it's not meant to be used as a drum so they take it you were talking about Remo earlier and their products are fine I have no problem with the Remo stuff but can you imagine Americans having to go ask for permission of the tree and be respectful of the tree first no we would just chop it down and make our drum I mean it's just I'm not saying we're bad but it's just not part of our culture we can chop it down and say wow it's some beautiful oak I could really use that to make some stuff or that's a great maple tree let's cut it down so they have to do that first and then to get tones that are correct for them they spend a lot of time on their tones and we if you're just watching a YouTube video on it you wouldn't really notice those things the tone they're making the sounds that they're making but they are they have different calls and things that really have carried over into America and to where we have rhythmic cadences and a rhythmic cadence that'll mean it's the end of the phrase and we're going to go into this new thing and they've been doing that for a very very long time that they'll use these rhythmic cadences to be the cue that we're moving into a new part and it's also so closely attached and related to dance so the drummers are important and they're driving the thing but even then they're studying the dancers they know the dance and so they're taking their cues from the dancers so if the dancers extend a phrase then in real time they have to make the decision to keep on one thing and watch and they'll give the cadence when they tell the dancers are ready to move to that next section when I'm looking at back beats and in America the groove and the drum beat it's very much come from the West African rhythms their approach to groove their approach to low notes being on the down beats and then their higher pitches being on a back beat so you'll hear those high hits coming in where you would now hear a snare drum and you'll have those nice open tones in America it's been translated into playing our bass drum and then in addition to that they'll elevate the drums so they get that nice open tone if you put your drum down on the ground you get the sound won't escape and you don't get those nice bass drum tones out of it and then they'll even control the angle sometimes they want a little bit of the drum sound muted but they want a little bit of the air to escape so they'll even affect the bass drum sound based on the angle on the floor that they're moving their drum to so when we're talking grooves even you know grooves of South America those things are based off of things that we've heard from field research and things ethnomusicologists that have been studying the unadulterated right music of these areas and these little towns, these little villages and what they're playing hopefully there still are some of those villages that have not been affected by having to groove to a hip hop beat or a drum beat in 4-4 and then they have to change who they are to fit what we are so and that's a that is a real problem across the world is in many of these countries they are changing their rhythms and their practice to match dance music and western music so that's the western africa northern africa you'll and places that are not wood dominant you'll hear ebodrums and you'll start to see like the dunebeck, the darbuca the I would say the first drum set is the dunebeck because it's got the nice bass drum sound it's got the little mids that would be a hi-hat it's got that nice sharp smack that gives it a snare drum sound and you can carry it with you anywhere so it's made its way it's made its way from africa all the way to the far east and you see it in Chinese music there'll be dunebecks in parts of china and the interesting thing there is however it made its way from africa to china when china's playing the pieces that use dunebeck they're often in odd meters there's odd meter music in china that plays in 7 and it's outlined by the drum so that's kind of a cool thing when you see why you ask yourself why is chinese music doing this but you follow the silk road and oh it's because the music had many conversations before it made its way finally to china and then the chinese took it and they made it culturally appropriate for them so then they took it and thought well how can we make it sound chinese and not like it's you know from somewhere else so so I would say when you're going from africa it's really taken two routes as far as the influence it's given yeah that's fascinating too because like you said it goes to china obviously it ends up in america and jazz is you know created but I don't know why but I think of it's really cool how you said it made its way to china and they took it and did their own thing with it because for some reason I just think of china maybe because traditionally it's seen kind of as a closed off country maybe that's more of a modern look where it's kind of closed off from things in certain ways like the internet and all that and I hope that's not a naive statement but it's cool to know that africa influenced music in china I never really would have thought about that well yeah it took many you know it took a while to get there but yes if you look at the origins of where these things came from so much of it can be traced all the way back to africa a lot of our rhythms are the homeland is africa and the continent because there's different drums and there's different percussion coming out of africa including our marimbas and our mallet instruments you know the traditional bellophone in like brokina faso and areas like that those bellophones became marimbas and sadly along the way they lost their microtones because there's you know when we think of microtonal music and I know we're a drum thing but with microtones we think of I think of arabic music mainly and I don't think of african music but the africans use those microtones also it's just that they use them in a very different way and they it's funny like in Turkish music they make the microtones make their music even more sad they enhance the darkness of the microtones and africa when you hear music like tamani diyabate and others they're using microtones but they're making it even prettier even happier by using just a little bit longer of an interval than what they would have if they were stuck on just the 12 tone and as these bellophones made its way into Europe and into America we just kind of you know got rid of the microtone notes and stuck with the 12 notes yeah yeah now and I think it should be said that like obviously we're comparing a lot of what we have to the American music and saying oh this is this way this is this way I want to be perfectly clear to everyone and I'm sure you feel the same way that there is some great American music there is great it's not bad to have things be on the pulse and you know the four and it's just different so that's oh I don't mean to try to make a thesis about American music being bad at all I'm American I was raised in playing rock and listening to hip hop and playing jazz I grew up in Rochester I went to the Eastman School of Music's programs to learn jazz and no absolutely there's nothing wrong or bad about the groove all I'm trying to say is it's not the only thing that exists exactly and I think when we're in America we tend to think it's the only approach that's the only use of drums I'm just trying to say there's more we can do and as Americans one thing I did when I was in undergrad was I got a job being an accompanist for dancers doing modern dance doing ballet and everything in between and I would say as a drummer it's a great experience to go and accompany classes because you start to you start to realize what can I give to this experience what colors do they need what other maybe splash symbol or little chimes or something I need to bring next time to make it really just full and you start to realize that yes your job being an accompanist is to make sure that they can count but it's but it goes beyond that then and you can start to experiment with colors and you can do that right here in America just playing with people and especially with dancers if I mean we kind of sometimes we forget music in almost every part of the world dances is it's marriage partner I mean regardless of the time meter and all that stuff there's dances and all those time meters too and so if we can as drummers just get a time to just watch dance and try to connect with that it's generally an experience and an experiment we don't always do but I would say it could really change how you approach your own drumming absolutely and I mean you not too long ago most drummers were tap dancers you know you've got little Steve Gad tap dancing on the Mickey Mouse Club and you've got Buddy Rich tap dancing and you've got all these guys it was it is dance I mean that's that's why we that's why we do it so now as we're getting close to the end here bringing this all to 2020 you said that a lot of the cultures in the world are trying to force their style into the western you know dance kind of just regular 4-4 patterns but that's not everywhere right there's still there's still hope for these cultures to keep their their heritage alive right oh there's always hope and there's always a chance it's just that American music has been has become so dominant around the world that you know I see it as like a benevolent imperialism or an unintentional imperialism that people really they love America for all it's good and all it's bad and all the complaining we do here people still love America and the idea of America and so America is cool New York City is cool no matter where you live in the world and so yeah you're gonna want to be cool too and so it's more like you want to be accepted by them so you might you might feel like you don't look American or you don't sound American but what can I do to sound a bit more American and and also remembering music is always about the audience and if the audience is all listening to American music and that's the cool exotic you know in music of their of their country then you want to be cool and exotic also so you're gonna try to be the expert on American music and you'll get more gigs and a lot of it just comes down to musicians we all need to make a living we need to pay our bills raise our kids and so we're gonna do things sometimes out of a necessity more than a desire and then it's a slippery slope because once you've gone down there and you've started to like I said the Bellophones lost its microtones some of the other music will lose it too because they know it doesn't sound right for a western style of music so I would say yes there's hope but I would also say there's a very large energy that's a momentum really of our music making a dominant impression in all the continents around the world interesting well hopefully doing what we're doing here today and kind of talking about it can be a great source of information for people to look into the more accurate historical representation of this music and I think that's a good segue to kind of get into as we wrap up a little bit more about you you are the world maestro so why don't you tell us about what you've got going on right now where people can send you let's pretend that the world isn't completely shut down as far as gigs and all that stuff and in a normal scenario what's your what you've got going on well before the pandemic I had been traveling quite extensively and I've run a group called the Pangean Orchestra and the Pangean Orchestra is a ensemble where we bring in instruments and musicians from around the world we unite in the practice rooms and on stage all together because we at the forefront of what we do is we believe in the exchange in the practice room between instruments that don't normally play together so we get a better vibe and a better feeling of who we are individually and what the other person can do so there's a lot of learning that goes on from the musician standpoint in those practice rooms and that's kind of where the magic happens so I run that but because I run that I feel a responsibility to better understand the cultures and the music so I've taken it upon myself to you put your money where your mouth is and you just go so I've been traveling I've been interviewing musicians in many countries I've been playing with them jamming with them recording with them I've been doing now the pandemic came and the other part of what I do professionally is I write music for television and at the time I'd say March, April I wanted to create my own project and take the skills that I had learned both as World Maestro and as the guy who writes your cues for some of your shows in the background and create my own project I also play Native American Flutes around the world with me and so that's just something I love and I do so I created a project called the Prayer Garden which really started in Mongolia I was in I had taken a trip into the Gobi Desert and we had spent some time there and I did some recording for myself and the vibe that I had gotten there and the overall experience I wanted to bring that to present it so I came up with that idea, the Prayer Garden and I worked very extensively just alongside my wife Sharon who helped to create a stage setup and a performance space within our own house that could get off this nice chill ambient meditative vibe and from there I used some sounds and soundscape design that I had been learning from live streams where I would put on that music and play along to it I also played Space Drum or the Hand Pan I'm a trained percussionist and I got this drum and you can't help but really feel peaceful and happy when you're playing on those drums it's just really fun to play them and so I wanted to use those drums and make it melodic and make it a pretty melody and things so along with playing some virtuosic little notes too because I am a drummer, come on we have to show off yeah, you know, it wasn't a while you can only suppress that for so long and then you just gotta bust out with some notes and make everyone go wow you can play fast you gotta do a little put a little sizzle on there so we've got this prayer garden project that we're really proud of really excited about we've started to release some singles for that the album comes out in October on the 16th and for right now I feel really good about the music I'm creating for the prayer garden if people want to find out about me, worldmeistro.com is the best site to go to and check out the different projects I'm working on and you know I also released a track of Amazing Grace a few weeks ago with a real choir and it's in 7 we changed the melody from the major pentatonic to minor and just played with the vibe we have this bass line that it was inspired by footprints really you know, if you know that track Wayne Shorter wrote but yeah, so that nice cool bass line is our anchor you know, and then we just went with it and we have, oh great jazz guitarist Chris Champion plays guitar on there and so that was fun so we've got cool projects yeah, so we've got cool projects going on I'm working on online course on composition and songwriting with an LA songwriter who's had a lot of hits and a hip-hop lyricist so we'll be giving students a very overall approach to creation of music from the hip-hop world from pop music and then I'm brought in as more the classical theoretical guy with that knowledge and trying to give an overall course that can you know help people from many different angles so those are the projects I'm working on yeah worldmeister.com's gotta be the best place to stay up to date and follow me on Instagram at worldmeister as well and you'll know what's going on there cool, well I am just beyond happy with everything that came out in this episode because it's just such a, I love the unique topics like this where it's like I said, it's different than just the company histories which I love but this is really just rare information so and I want to you know obviously I'm sure you do too give a shout out to your wife Jaren who's been kind of helping to coordinate this with me and get us set up and everything so that's she's, I love it when people are professional and make it easy so that's a big thank you to her. Absolutely. Man, well Colin thank you for coming on the show again everyone it's Colin O'Donohoe worldmeister.com Colin thank you for being here. Thank you so much for for this and for it's just a great topic and not everyone asks me and it will show to talk about this it's pretty rare so it's pretty special that you have this and you have this opportunity. Awesome. Great, thank you Colin. Alright. If you like this podcast find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.