Riddimbaker Collection Reviews

"Riddimbaker Collection is the second book by Daniel Giordani and contains 50 varied and beautiful original compositions for Djembé, Dundun and Smallpercussion on 158 pages. Inspired by his teacher Famoudou Konate who asked him, "Why don't you Europeans make your own rhythms instead of learning ours?" Daniel Giordani has written a comprehensive work for percussion ensembles in the tradition of West African polyrhythmic music. Each piece consists of 5 voices, i.e. 2 djembé and 3 bass drum voices. However, the arrangements can also be implemented with smaller instrumentations, e.B. all three bass drum voices are played by only one player. In some pieces there is an additional shaker or shekeré voice, or a voice for a mallet instrument. Briefly and precisely, Giordani explains the system of how West African arrangements are usually structured, its notation and basic rules for dealing with the pulse. His compositions are graphically simple and clearly presented as a modular principle and invites the players to deal creatively with the process, i.e. the arrangement of his pieces. Each piece consists of basic patterns, intro, break and solo, which can be arranged, repeated or exchanged as desired. A wonderful encouragement not always to follow ready-made patterns, but to become creative yourself. The pieces reveal a clear and well-founded rhythm and sound language, you notice immediately; the author is very familiar with West African drum culture. For each piece there is a short description and classification in the difficulty level "easy", medium " and difficult". The book does not include a CD, but on Daniel Giordani's homepage www.rhytmotop.at you can find under Media Tracks to all voices of his compositions. For all djembé enthusiast percussionists who can read music safely and well an absolute purchase recommendation!
Ellen Mayer