West African Drumming Book 2 – Audio Support

Above, you can play the audio tracks that accompany Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 2, and you can also download them. The recordings are of professionally produced performances by school children of all the 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”.

In this new book (Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 2), Andy Gleadhill takes pupil and teachers to the next level of progressive West African Drumming, exploring new West African instruments and rhythms, and enabling pupils to discover their full musical potential and creativity.

The book introduces new instruments such as the Talking Drums and Dun Duns and shows you how to incorporate West African melodies in to your drumming with tunes played on the Balafon or African Xylophone.

Each of the six new tunes is graduated in difficulty to allow for musical progression but they also contain differentiated parts, so that all pupils can play in the ensembles, regardless of ability. Although the book introduces new West African instruments, all the tunes can be played on any drums available to the players.

Like all of Andy’s books, Andy Gleadhill’s West African Drumming Book 2 is suitable for both music teachers and for non-specialists and no prior experience is assumed – not even the ability to read music. It includes advice on basic playing techniques as well as warm-up exercises, lesson plans and repertoire.

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, as well as being a sensible starting point for beginners.