[michi]

I'm having the best results using a similar method but using my ring finger and middle finger welded together...

Same here. I started out using index and middle finger, but now use middle and ring finger. I don't think it matter much as to which fingers you use. It's more that the contact patch needs to be small to get at that resonance.

Michi.

[Waraba]

I have never met Mamady, but I am guessing that Le' is the sound you are trying to achieve with the slap in question or the onomatopoeia for it. I have been fortunate enough to get instruction from Djo Bi on the slap but didn't ask him about the name of it.

Djo Bi definitely calls it topalo (tonpalo?) as his latest album bears that title; but I also asked him how to do the tonpalo and he showed me. He was very gracious about it.

I say "showed" me, not that I "got" it.

He turned his fingers inward. Bearing edge was between the middle and ring fingers, with pointer & middle fingers stuck together, and ring and pinky stuck together. Like the Vulcan salute, sideways. When he did it, it worked. When I did it, he said, "Now you have to practice."

That's interesting. So are you saying that he hit the skin with his ring finger and little finger only, with the middle finger and index finger outside of the bearing edge? I'm having the best results using a similar method but using my ring finger and middle finger welded together...

Jon

Yes--that's exactly it. My hand doesn't understand how his hand does it, but do it it did.

[davidognomo]

So is the term 'Tonpalo' Ivorian? Can someone ask when they get the chance?

Yes it is. That's one of the questions I asked Baba Touré. As you know he's ivorian, and that's what he told me. Don't know nothing about the origins or etymology of the term.

[Brian Lynch]

Is the Third slap a muted slap or open.

[davidognomo]

I have seen people referring to the tonpalo as "third slap". I guess the first one is an open slap, the second being a muted slap and tonpalo being the third. But please, someone chime in to validate or correct this.

[michi]

I've heard the terms "big slap" and "little slap", neither of which is muted, and neither of which is the same as a tonpalo. Instead, I think those terms refer to the way you can emphasise the harmonics differently. The "big slap" brings out the higher-order harmonics more, so it is higher-pitched, whereas the "little slap" is basically a normal slap. The tonpalo is different because it emphasises the (1,1) mode while suppressing everything else as much as possible, and it makes a different pitch altogether.

Michi.

[michi]

I just noticed that the CD is available for sale here:

http://www.vividsound.de/_sites/shop.html

Michi.

[gr3vans]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9mLdXvO_po#t=10[/video]