Origins of the Doumbek African Drum

Series Summary

The Doumbek African Drum, also known as the goblet drum or chalice drum, is a percussion instrument originating from West Africa and the Middle East and is typically used for Arabic and Islamic music. Similar, but smaller than a Djembe, the Doumbek African drum is a great addition to Middle Eastern music, as well as a new way to spice up other Western music. With all the different types of strikes and hits, learning how to play may take some help.

In this free doumbek tutorial video series, watch as percussion master Alex Spurkel teaches how to play the Doumbek African Drum. Learn different hits and forms for this African percussion instrument in these quick and easy step-by-step music lesson and get useful drumming tips to improve rhythm and form. Strikes like the doum, tek, caa and slap, and rhythms like the ayub, beledi and malfuf, are covered here. Let the experts at ExpertVillage help improve your musical horizon with useful hints for the African Doumbek drum.

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Alex Spurkel from Naked Rhythm and Universal Drumming on behalf Expert Village. In this clip we're going to be talking about the Doumbek drum and it's cultural background. Let me start with a quick demonstration. Okay, so what you just heard is me playing the Doumbek otherwise known as Derbekki, Derboka, or Tabla depending on where you are in the Middle East. This drum is played all throughout the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. Countries popularly known as Doumbek countries are Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, but it also goes up North to Greece, Turkey, and than down south all the way out to North Africa and even out to Morocco and as you can see a lot of these drums are very ornately designed such as this. All beautiful hand inland. Originally this drum is made out clay and with a fish skin head. Which is this one right here. This is the traditional Doumbek. Okay, as you can see they've stretched a skin, fish skin over the top here and than have a inlaid clay body. These days most professionals tend to play the synthetic variation here. Which I'm going to be doing the lessons with. With an aluminum body and a synthetic head. There a lot more indestructible shall we say. So with that background let's get started and learn how to play this drum."