Crawl before you walk. When studying and playing West African and Afro Cuban drums and rhythms, just like a baby you have to learn to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. If you don’t learn the basics, the fundamentals, handing techniques and the rudiments then you will have no foundation to work off of and you will fall flat.

In West African, Brazilian, Haitian and Afro Cuban drumming there are arranged, composed pieces for both ballet (performance) and traditional drumming styles (village originated).

You need to know all the basic accompaniment parts as they are your foundation. And you have to learn to make these simple parts groove andinterlock. Not just know them as stagnant parts. This takes time. There is no substitute for experience.

Like in a house. The bell, dunun and clave is your wall. If you don’t have these or understand their importance your roof caves in.
If you try to learn to solo (to run) before you learn the basic rhythm structures you will be missing the essence of the rhythms. You can play on top of it but you will never really get it. How could you? A great soloist weaves through the rhythm.

If you don’t learn all the accompaniment parts and especially the dununs and how it fits together you are missing the entire bass, rhythm section and melody. How could you sing to a song if you only know the words but not the melody?

Many people rush to perform, to be on stage, play in classes and even teach before they have even mastered all the parts to one rhythm composition. What’s the hurry? Why not learn the music sys