A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter I-22:  How Children Are Trained in Drumming and Singing

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Types of toy drums for children; first proverbs; how a child is taught to sing; discipline; children who are “born” with the drum; a child who was trained by dwarves; learning the chiefs; learning to sing; performing; how young drummers respect their teachers; obligations to teachers; teaching and learning



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Dakoli N-Nyɛ Bia

Dakoli N-Nyɛ Bia representative song text:







































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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

Drumming and family

Training a young child

Training by dwarves

Teaching young drummers

Singing

Learning comes from the heart

Traveling to towns to learn from other drummers

The importance of being taught

Beating the different sizes of drums

Developing into maturity



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Proverbs and Sayings

Talks enter one another.

A bachelor is a child,  and a married person is an elder.  [See Dakoli N-Nye Bia song text above]

The one who has someone to look after him will eat; the one who has no one holding him will not eat.

The one who says there is no God, he should look behind and look forward.

The one who says there is no God should look at the bee's wax and know its inside and outside.

The house of Namɔɣu has strength, plenty!

Everybody has his door to enter into one house.

Many mice have gathered and they are preparing bells:  who is going to put the bells on the cat?

You cannot talk about drumming and not call the names of the chiefs.

If you are going to talk about drumming in Dagbon, you have to call the names of the chiefs, because the chiefs and the drummers are one.

if you are holding something, you want the way and means so that it will increase.

It's in his heart; it's not in his mouth.

My grandfather is outside.

Learning is from the heart.

Learning is within the heart.

You have to be patient to learn drumming.  It takes time.

It is the heart that does the work, and the ears too will be listening and see whether it is falling.

Any time you are beating drums, all your mind should be inside the beating.

The way we beat, we beat with thinking.

If your heart is not sweet, even if you take a good thing, it will turn to be a bad thing.

It is white heart that does work.  That is why I say that learning is in the heart.

Everyone learns drumming with what his own heart wants.

It isn't only in your town that you learn drumming.

God should cover Bizuŋ's anus.

If you say, “I have already known it; I already know”:  that will not give a human being wisdom.

Drumming is:  “I don't know.”

Every knowledge is supposed to have a father.

Drumming has no end, and nobody learns all of it.  Everybody will only learn to his extent.

A person who doesn't talk is not a fool, and someone who talks a lot is not a wise person.

If you say you don't want trouble and a trouble-maker comes to meet you, whatever happens, he will cause you trouble.

The one who asks is the person who makes the one he asks to know more.

Anyone who is a learned person wants the one who asks.

Somebody who teaches also learns.


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