How to Hold a Doumbek African Drum

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is Alex Spurkel of Naked Rhythm and Universal Drumming on behalf of Expert Village. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to properly hold and sit with the Doumbek drum. Unlike most other drums that are played table top like this, is you can see we have a different configuration here with the Doumbek. The proper way to do it is to sit and have the drum sideways on your lap. The way you want to go about this is, first you want to sit nice and square, feet shoulder width apart and flat on the ground. You want your shoulders to be square and relaxed, have good posture and you're going to set the drum on your lap so like, like so. If you are right handed, the drum is going to go to your left. If you're left handed, you're going to put the drum on your right. Now I'm right handed, so I'm going to be playing with the drum to my left. Once you've put the drum on your lap as such, you want to make sure that both legs are supporting the drum. The drum is somewhere between your hip and your knee. Okay, you don't want to have it pulled in too tight. You don't want to have it out too far either. Have it nice and comfortable in the middle, and make sure that your left arm is always resting on top of the drum with your elbow down. This is very important. It helps create stability for the drum while you're playing so it doesn't move around on you. So once you've got a hold on the drum like this, we're ready to play."