Coconut Festival

Another fun day with Tepairu Manea and his Tahitian drumming community at the Coconut Festival on the island of Kaua’i. I just happened to read in the local paper about the festival and we decided to check it out – as soon as Manea saw me wandering around he invited me to join the drummers.

Every style of drumming has it’s amazing nuances, there is so much to learn – and i so appreciate Uncle Manea and the time he has spent with me over the years, passing on his knowledge.

The core instrumentation is based around a toere, Uncle Manea is an incredible wood carver and carves all his instruments out of milo wood. You can see his amazing designs in the pictures. Each slit drum produces different sounds (depending on where you hit it) and has a unique part which when combined with the other players creates a wonderful polyrhythmic sound. This is all held together by the constant beat of the pahu (a type of bass drum).