Basic Doumbek African Drum Strikes: The Doum

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 be talking about how to play the doum on the Doumbek. The doum is the base, the base note that we get on this drum. It sounds like this. Okay, and the proper way to play the doum is with a nice, flat hand as such. You want to make sure that your fingers are together and that your thumb is out like this. You want to make sure your hand is flat, and not cupped in or hyper extended like this. Your striking surface is going to be the bottom of the fingers, not the palm, okay? And your placement of the hand on the drum is going to be about like that, so that the middle of; the tip of your middle finger is going to reach to the center of the drum. No farther than that. Okay, so your primary sweet spot is not dead center, but actually a little bit out closer to the side. You want to make sure to move with both your wrists and a little bit with your arm as well. And very important, you want to make sure that you bounce off of the drum. If you stick on the drum like this, you kill the sound. So, nice and gentle. You don't want to over hit the doum too hard. Just like that, bouncing off the drum. And that's how we get a good doum."