Miami drums

From Mark:
Saturday 4 – 6pm – free
Broward Drum Circle at Fern Forest Nature Center in Coconut Creek – Broward County has some of the best drummers in South Florida, and this is the best place to find them on a Saturday afternoon. The site is sheltered, so the circle rocks even in a downpour. I come up from Miami, and it’s always worth the trip. I plan to be there early to warm up.

Sunday 2-ish till 6-ish – free
Oak Grove Park Drum Circle at 159 St & NE 6 Ave in Miami, across the lake from the parking lot & playground. This is a young circle with a distinctly Haitian flavor. There are more good (really good) drummers than there are drums, so bring extras if you have them. There is some seating; but you may want to bring your own. If you want to bring kids, the playground is great (LOTS of kids – all playing very seriously); but it is across the lake from the drum circle, so if you feel that you have to be right next to your kids when they play you may not be comfortable.Also notice th “ish” on the times. I have arrived a couple of time and not heard any drumming; but as soon as I start warming up, a group materializes (as if they were just waiting for me – made me feel quite special).

Saturday 3/29 Harambee West African dance class 3:00 – 4:30PM – suggested donation $5
17030 S Dixie Hwy Perrine, FL Drummers who know Kuku, Sorsonet, Lamba, Manjani are invited

Sunday 3/30 Delou Africa Community Dance Class – 3 PM at FIU Biscayne Campus Academic 2 Bldg, North Miami, FL in the second floor studio Please arrive at 3 PM, ready to start warm up. A suggested donation of $5 will be collected at the beginning of class.No matter what you do, have fun playing in this wonderful weather down here in South Florida!

Playing your djembe standing up, as you should instead of sitting down, is by all means a much enjoyable experience, and also, an exhausting one.
Looking to purchase a strap for my djembe I looked first on the musical stores online. Remo has a djembe strap for about $28, Sageman Drums has another option for $30, theirs “is available in 3 types of trim: Brown & Yellow, Blue, and Rasta” [Mmmm Rasta straaaap, yes, finally a rasta strap] Ebay had two options, but both didn’t look like anything very special, some nylon strap with green, black, and…yes, rasta themes. There were some more artistic versions such this one but by this point, I was determined to make it myself.
So I went back to Google, and found this two invaluable sources of strapping knowledge:

Rhytm Traders – They also sell Djembe straps
Djembe Straps’s FAQ – All you ever wanted to know about straps and were afraid to ask 🙂

After reading trhough all the posts, I went ahead, and order some nylon webbing from Onrope1.com. I wanted to get the tubular webbing, my idea was to get a wide one and then fill it up with some sort of foam to make it easier on my arms [Imagine holding a big djembe’s weight, plus hitting on it hard while playing! :S]
I finally got the 2 in wide seatbelt nylon webbing, tubular was much expensive, and I imagine that filling it out with foam was not the best solution, it’s better a wider material than narrow one. FAQ refers to the karate belts as one of the best options, problem is, karate belts are not as long as you would hope for this job…

Editor’s side note:I try to get nylon webbing locally. I could only find a store that had something like this down here in Miami. I went to West Marine, both stores on Biscayne Blvd. They weren’t even aware that they did have nylon webbing. They had also tubular webbing, but on an absurd price, so I ended up buying it online.

When I got the strap, I realized that the Rhytm Traders tutorial is as confusing as the ascii drawing on Djembe Straps’s FAQ. Not sure why the pictures are so focused on the character doing the tutorial instead of the djembe/strap itself. So I asked Mark to show me how to create it, an it’s a very simple thing if you know what are you doing 🙂

I’ll promise to post some picture of how it works…