Have you ever danced to a talking drum before?

“Friday is a day to finish your goals for the week. It is a day to celebrate that which you set out to accomplish at the beginning of the week. Well done.”

Byron Pulsifer

The feelings and happiness that I get when dancing to a talking drum are always of a high degree. Once I am in such a mood, I don't want the beat to stop, and that makes me want to give my best in dancing from my tribe.

I love my tribe and culture and this musical instrument is one of what makes us the best because there is more to this ordinary talking drum. In Church, the first thing I notice is seeing if the talking drum is available because that alone could make the service more interesting to me as I love to dance and am not shy.

It makes me proud to showcase my dancing skill. I can dance, provided there's a talking drum on set. I don't think anyone can beat me to dancing when talking drum is available 😜.

Talking Drum is always used many times on the first Sunday of each month because it's Thanksgiving moment and we ought to dance like never before.

Though on some Sundays, they don't show especially when you are hiring someone from outside and you get disappointed. Redeemed Christian Church of God is known to go with talking drum and it's always a special time dancing to the tone of the drum.

Aside from that, the player must be skilled and knows how to play the instrument or else, I might not enjoy the ambience around it. I love such a moment as it keeps me focused and in spirit to praise God. If, as a player cannot play this, it's like spoiling my mood for that day and it would look so boring and uninteresting to dance.

That doesn't mean I don't dance without it but there is always a difference when it is around and one can play it very well.

There is this man in my former church where I live before relocating. This is very obvious that in their family, they play talking drum and people like them have a special name which some bears “Ayangbemi” and the others.

Whoever that bears that first name called “Ayan”, it means they are from the family where talking drum is their lifestyle. This man can play different sounds to the drum and we would interprete the meaning by singing it out.

Enough of that... Let me explain what a talking drum is

The talking Drum which is called “Gangan” in my language is one of the best musical instruments in the Yoruba culture. I don't think other tribe uses it, but I can boldly say the Yoruba people use this in any event.

The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa. The pitch of Gangan can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech (this is the part I love).

Talking Drum has two drumheads that are connected by leather tension cords, which allows the player to change the pitch of the drum and this can be done when he or she squeezes the cords between arm and body.

Talking Drum can be played by both males and females and it amazes and admires me more when a female plays it. I have gone to a program where a young girl of about 12 years played all through the night and that alone interests me.

Learning the talking drum depends on the kind you are going for, whichever you want, as the duration and time of learning it varies. If you just want to have fun playing it, then, time isn't necessary as to some, it might take a month, and if you want to play along with music, the time duration is 6 months.

But if you want to learn so that you can play at a Gig, then it may take you more than 2 years depending on how fast you are.

The reason it is called a talking drum is that it imitates or mimics spoken language's intonation and rhythm. The talking drum is used to communicate information over long distances.

It helps to settle disputes among members of a village and also helps in serving as a memory device to help people remember important events that took place in African society.

Thanks for reading

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[July 15, 2022] (No 196 articles for the year)