Editing Djembe (section)

==Study==
Traditionally, as today, in Africa an individual needs to spend many years accompanying his master in ceremonies and other festivities before becoming a real djembefola (djembe player). Today in the communities of western civilization learning to play the djembe generally involves finding a master drummer and having private lessons or lessons for small groups of people.
Players generally need to learn the basic sounds and traditional rhythm samples (4/4 and 12/8) to be able to follow classes. Many years of playing and learning are needed to be able to produce a sound that is comparable in its quality to that of a master drummer.

Written transcriptions of rhythms tend to be imprecise. Usually only the basic idea of the rhythm is transcribed but the real feeling that it carries can't be easily put down on paper.<ref name="Billmeier">{{cite book|last1=Billmeier|first1=Uschi|last2=Keïta|first2=Mamady|title=A Life for the Djembé—Traditional Rhythms of the Malinké|publisher=Arun-Verlag|year=2004|edition=5th|isbn=978-3-935581-52-3|location=Kirchhasel-Uhlstädt|postscript=. First published 1999 as a three-language edition (English, German, and French)}} {{ISBN|3-927940-61-5}}</ref> This is due to the nature of the West African music—the different types of swing (at least four of them) that are not easily expressible with western notation. For this reason, written material for advanced players is still scarce if not unavailable, while general and informational literature can be easily obtained.

With the advent of musical software such as Percussion Studio, transcribing and reproducing rhythms has become easier. Musical software can be useful for people who don't have a group to practice with, as individual tracks can be isolated or tempo changed to assist with playing along and learning/practising. A competent user is able to reproduce material learnt in a workshop for later use. Notwithstanding its utility as a basic transcription tool, Percussion Studio cannot reproduce the intonation and microtiming of a skilled player and has limited value, therefore, for transcribing solo. The drum machine software [[Hydrogen (software)]] contains Djembe, dunun and bell sound files that can be used to study as described above.