How to play talking Drum – introduction

Akindele Michael March 14, 2022December 16, 2023 2 min read

What is talking drum?

Talking drum is one of the Yoruba ancient drum discovered by our fore father and played by them before the discovering of modern drums by white people.

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GANGA

Our fore father seen talking drum as their source of Joy especially in an organization where drum is necessary to be played. Likewise, the current generation cannot do without talking drum.

This is one of the reason while many people seeing talking drum as one of the ever green drum in Yoruba land and its culture. If I mean “Ever Green Drum” it’s simply mean a drum which has been in the existence and it’s still existing.

In most religion organization, talking drum as being the top recognize drum by people because of the different melody the drum has inside it. But the kind of melody greatly depend on the person playing the drum.

Talking drum can be subdivided into different size with the same shape or differentshape. Some may be small while some are medium and some are big.

The similarity between talking drum including the following below;

Face (Awo Oju ilu)
Rope (Osan)
Strap (Apa)
Ring inform of rope on both edge (Epi)
Drum stick (Opa ilu)
Mortar with Hollow at both ends (ODO)
Morphology

All talking drum have something in common, which is the sound produce by them. Below are the three common sound produce by talking drum;

It may also be written has following;

How does the sound produce by talking drum?

Below considering how the sound is being produce, you have to bear in mind that you must have known how to position the drum between your arm and how to handle drum stick appropriately. After that you can then proceed to sound production.

How does the three sound is produce?

When you hit the face of talking drum without apply any pressure, that is D (DO) sound. But when you apply slight pressure to the drum (slight squeeze) and hit the face, you produce R (RE) sound and when you apply total pressure to the drum (total squeeze) and hit the face with drum stick, that is M (MI) sound.

All the three sound can be produce in all talking drum in respective of the size and shape.

Why is it called talking drum?

From the name given “talking drum”, meaning the drum can be used to interpret whatever will say by breaking those words or phrases into three major language produce by the drum. {i.e D (DO), R (RE), M (MI)}.

For instance, the word “ilu” (Drum) interpretation mean (DO, DO) D, D.

However, before you can understand how to use talking drum to interpret whatever you say, you must have a deep knowledge of AMI (i.e Yoruba syllable).