- Free downloads of audio recordings of all the pieces in Andy Gleadhill's African Drumming Book 1
- Professionally produced performances by school children
West African Drumming Book 1 is one of Andy Gleadhill’s growing range of Teacher’s guides for classroom instruments.
Above you can play the audio tracks that accompany Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 1 and you can also download them. The recordings are of professionally produced performances by school children of all the West African tunes in the book. We recommend that you listen to the tunes either through headphones or good quality speakers as laptop and small loudspeakers will struggle to reproduce the lower frequencies and may sound rather “tinny”.
Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 1 is the classic West African Drumming class teaching guide, based on over 20 years of classroom teaching experience, and has been specially written to help teachers and workshop leaders teach West African drumming and rhythms to class-sized groups.
The book is clear and practical and no previous drumming or music teaching experience is assumed. It begins with an introduction to basic playing techniques, followed by warm-up exercises, and proceeds to introduce 10 West African rhythms, each with teaching and learning notes and examples of how to develop them into complete pieces of music ready for performance.
Our West African Drumming support videos may be of interest to you – please check out the following links:
African Drumming Class Packs – a video overview of each African Drumming pack, showing what’s included in the pack and what the instruments sound like. These videos provide a useful overview of the options for schools or clubs looking to introduce African Drumming using a collaborative teaching and learning approach.
African Drumming Instruments – videos introducing and demonstrating the sound of each Drums for Schools African Drumming instrument. Covers Djembes, Bongos, M’bira and relevant hand percussion. There’s a separate “How to play” playlist below which covers playing techniques.
African Drumming How to Play – videos showing the basic playing techniques for each African Drumming instrument. Covers Djembes, Balafon, Bongos, Claves, Mbira (Thumb Piano), Agogo Bells, and Bento Shaker. There’s also a demo of the dundun set.
African Drumming Lesson Plan Support – videos supporting the Primary Scheme of Work and Lesson Plans and covering basic techniques, warm-up exercises, call and response and soloing.
African Drumming Performances – videos of African Drumming ensembles performing. Great to give you an idea of what’s possible. Includes dundun and djembe soloing.
African Drumming Workshops – videos of student workshops.
African Drumming CPD Training – videos of CPD training.
African Drumming Maintenance – videos showing how to tune and re-skin a djembe.
You may also be interested in our free West African Drumming – Primary – Scheme of Work which is an excellent practical accompaniment to Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 1. For more advanced teaching support please see Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 2. You may also be interested in our West African Drumming – An Extended Introduction document which gives you a wider background knowledge of the subject.
