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After learning that Bembe-Meta is only played for male orisha , I was wondering if there are any Bembe rythems played for just female orisha, or any particular orisha, like when playing bata.I have heard that when playing for female orisha in a bembe that you should put the open tone of the caja on the bombo.
Is there a particular style of doing this , or do you just simply throw the tone on the bombo?

I've been to a lot of guiros and I have never seen anyone play like this .

Can anyone school me on this?

Thanks Ronnie,

When Sandy Perez was teaching my class my class Bembe-Meta for the male,
he also taught Bembe - Agwe for the female.

The Caja part goes like this

HSOHSTHSTHST

so there is an open note on the bombo note, at least for the matanzas style "female" bembe
from Sandy Perez.

The coolest thing I learned from Sandy on these bembes is how to smoothly switch from meta to agwe and from agwe to meta for each drum part without stopping.

edit: I just wanted to point out, agwe is my own spelling of what I heard my teacher say, the word was never written out for me, the same with "meta".

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Taikonoatama, that chart is put together really well I'm adding it to my collection. I wish sandy was in my area, I definitely would try to get lessons from him. He must be a gold mine of knowledge. Thanks for sharing

One of the things we're working on with Bembe, is trying to recognize when the Caja moves from the Tones on the "one" to the bombo, and the Mula then moves from the Bombo to the "one". This switching of tonality makes a notable melody change that makes the ears perk up and notice.
We aren't yet so sophisticated to move all the parts.. But, I'm getting to the point of an understanding of what could be communicated in a piece if everyone were high level enough.. It almost seems limitless in possible musical sophistication!

Thanks to everybody contributing to this discussion! I have never heard of any differentiation like this in Bembe.

Great lesson. - TA

windhorse wrote:One of the things we're working on with Bembe, is trying to recognize when the Caja moves from the Tones on the "one" to the bombo, and the Mula then moves from the Bombo to the "one". This switching of tonality makes a notable melody change that makes the ears perk up and notice.
We aren't yet so sophisticated to move all the parts.. But, I'm getting to the point of an understanding of what could be communicated in a piece if everyone were high level enough.. It almost seems limitless in possible musical sophistication!

We've practiced the changing of all 3 parts over here a couple of times, we've more or less found the mula to be the most difficult to change from agwe to meta and from meta to agwe, I think the cachimbo is the easiest. We've asked Sandy several times how do you know when to switch and he says you hear the singer then the caja, mula and cachimbo fall in place.

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Me and some guy's I play with were working this stuff this weekend and it sounded great!!

Thanks everyone for all the great info.
Ronnie

Sandy transitions from the meta patterns to the agwe patterns (and back) without stopping. It can be challenging but it's great when you get it down and smoothly make the switch over. I'll post the meta to agwe to meta transitions later.

Hi James,

I was busy learning Sandy's Bembe styles from you. I'm ready for the next step . I could work out the transitions myself ... but if there's a fixed way to do it, and you have your transcription ready, I'm one of the people who would be grateful to you for sharing a third "box chart".

Anyway, thank you so far,

Thomas

Thanks for sharing the gold guys.

Thanks a lot, Geordie!

Whenever I find the occasion to share any authentic transcriptions, I'll do that. My resources are rather limited, though.

Thomas

Thomas Altmann wrote:Thanks a lot, Geordie!

Whenever I find the occasion to share any authentic transcriptions, I'll do that. My resources are rather limited, though.

Thomas

Thomas, I've already learned a lot from your website so, in a way I'm kind of paying you back.
This particular bembe is really such a special rhtyhm, I've never heard of it being played like this,
maybe I'll have the chance to play it with somebody from this forum that got it from James and myself.

I have one more question for Sandy's students: Your transcriptions suggest that the drums are played by hands. Otherwise I don't know how exactly to execute RH-slaps or even some of the hand patterns ("stickings"). Now, I learned the Meta Bembe before under the name "Matanzas style Bembe" with a basically equivalent rhythmic structure but a more simplified sticking to suit RH stickwork for the Caja as well as the the Mula. If you play the Caja part for the Meta with a RH stick, the two subsequent bass strokes in the left hand make more sense; because if you hold a stick in your right hand, you cannot easily play one of them in the right hand (holding a stick).

So, how did Sandy play these parts? Did he tell you anything on this subject? Can the parts be played either way? Did he use "skin-on-skin" execution only for the class? Or is there a way to play your Mula and Caja patterns with a stick (or two?)?

Greetings,

Thomas

P.S.: I don't have my own transcription at hand, so I better don't try to write it out for you.