Look Who it Was Random video

Spontaneous music at my workshop in Dakar, Senegal - Modou Gaye on left

4,773 views · Published 13 November 2011 · 3:47 · Indexed 7 October 2026

Channel: dennis havlena · 2011 · Music

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The Goethe Institut in Dakar invited me to put on a workshop about 
building the musical instruments described in my webpage, mainly my "hank-drums", made from propane tanks. See http://www.DennisHavlena.com . What an excellent, wonderful time I had there. Here's a short video from the workshop, at the Baye Fall village along the ocean in Dakar. Top-notch hang player Modou Gaye (left) was in the workshop & he and I were making a 5-note "bass hank-drum" from a propane tank. We'd just tuned the highest note to the proper pitch in order to play bass along with the 8 other normally-pitched hank-drums built & to our surprise, the remaining 4 notes sang nicely in tune with the first one AS IS! We have no idea what scale this bass hank-drum is tuned to, but it sounds good, so we left it alone. More videos coming. I just returned home yesterday, Nov 12, 1011 after three incredibly fun & interesting weeks in Senegal.
PS: please try to ignore the hand-sander you can hear in this video -- fellow next to us was making ebony tuning pegs for the cookie-tin kora he was making.

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