Fifth inventions for Djembe - Drum music, Dm 22 - my 121st album. A monumental Fifth suite of inventions for my signature instrument.

The term 'invention' has lingered long in my imagination. I take the term from Bach, and his delight and facility to give complex and rewarding music to solo instruments. As a percussionist I was fascinated by this idea - that one should strive to give voice to a whole 'music of richness’ with a very limited pallet. As a Visual Artist and Percussionist [years before I moved wholesale to music through the preserving medium of the recording studio] - I observed this constructive aspect of Patternation and form. Visually, I saw Invention in the Constructive Black line geometry of my Elementalism. And I brought this and the notion of Bach to the rhythm and harmonics of performance drumming in my stage persona 'Perpetuum Mobile.

Invention is the very heart of the matter in music, it is how one discovers an instrument, How one composes - however one imposes. As a percussionist I have Invented suites of music for all kinds of things even an Industrial fridge [in 2017] - the percussed sounds of which I brought directly to music as a considered action of Composition - through observation and control.

So the concept of invention, to construct ones work from the ground up is an Ideal in much of my work - and writing here I really can see a close parallel, from my Visual Art, to the life long percussion that would one day [in 2006] be, the life changing force, that propelled me into a 'A Time of music' and eventually -as a Contemporary composer [2022] to this British Library Edition.


Some background

My first Album - after a Drumming recital at my Home town’s University - 'A Summer Evenings Drumming’ - a man audience offered me the use of his recording studio. In one afternoon, I created 'Inventions for Shamanic Drum' - a North American frame Drum lent to me by a very good friend Drum maker Pat Duncliffe. I then wanted to pursue a whole slew of Invention works for various types of limiting percussion and I would over the years - one the most life shaping of these was in my 6th album, an early landmark in my work where I turned to the Djembe, my favourite drum family. This Seminal set, recorded now in my own studio, and Cited now in the Cambridge Companion to Composition - I called tellingly the 'First Inventions for Djembe' - figuring there would soon be more. Infact the second set was years down the line at album 92 - 86 albums later. Hundreds of works in all manner of fields precede it. A third set followed almost immediately and a fourth after that. And I thought - that is it - there isn't anything more I can do with a Djembe.

In 2014 I permanently damaged a finger on my right hand in a fall - for much of that year I thought that was an end to the kind of playing I am known for. Late in January of 2015, I was practicing in the studio at home and suddenly I was hearing what was amounting to an exciting new technique. I knew something was going to happen - that this moment would be golden, and if I didn't catch it would be gone. What followed was the '5th Inventions for Djembe' as you have them here, Live, in order, even with the proportions of the spacing - without error - in one continuous take. The concentrated momentum left me exhorted. A 'hole in one' ten times in a row.

It would be weeks before I could listen to it - in minute detail, following every nuance on screen. And I found one tiny error. Toward the end of the 10th piece, and I had told people it was perfect. A single tiny hesitation - a fraction of a second and I could easily correct it. I cut the live recording into ten 10 tracks, to the natural proportions in the gaps between the pieces, revealing also, in the relative lengths of the pieces, a structure in 3 Broad Parts.

The first Part - of 5 short Pieces of 2 - 4 mins. - each with a couple of seconds gap. A longer natural gap, gives then a Second Part, of three longer pieces of seven 7 - 8 mins. each, the first of which, Invention six, splits naturally into to parts, 6i & ii as one track. A longer natural gap then leads to a Third Section, of two longer parts - Inventions 9 and 10, invention 9 topping 13 mins. The whole thing then takes just over an hour, all squared up and mastered. The final master was made over several days of coming to terms with what I'd got here.

jB Feb 2015 and May 2021.


Internal structure.

Set A

Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 1 - Rh 451 -- 04’04
Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 2 - Rh 452 -- 02’56
Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 3 - Rh 453 -- 02’48
Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 4 - Rh 454 -- 02’51
Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 5 - Rh 455 -- 02’54

Set B

Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 6i & 6ii - Rh 456 -- 09’59

Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 7 - Rh 457 -- 07’03

Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 8 - Rh 458 -- 06’40

Set C

Fifth Inv. for Dj no. 9 - Rh 459 -- 13’29

Fifth Inv. for Dj no 10 - Rh 460 -- 08’37


"Ones ears ring with Djembe overtones; it's very hypnotic and remarkably rich. Great work!" Marc Yeats - British Contemporary Composer and Artist. Feb 2015


"Great work. Great." Markus Wenninger - German Wind player and improviser. Specialist in New music performance. Feb 2015


It’s a kind of performance ritual - the interaction of one hand to another in time and intention. jB 2021


The Six invention Sets for Djembe

A structurally important Series of inventions for my signature instrument the Djembe Drum. An early monument cast a huge shadow over my work until we have five further sets in close succession - each tightening the difficulty - challenging myself and any future audience. Together with my other Drum Percussion series - the 12 Sonatas for solo Drum - they form the core of my Drum Work.


- Inv. for Dj. in Group one - The Blue Cherry Album Group -

[] Album Dm 6 - First inventions for Djembe

A cycle of inventions that just poured out of me live to tape. A cycle that surprised and delighted me and has stood as a signature set ever since. It would be a long time before I’d attempt a second set.

Cited as exemplary by Professor of Composition at the RCM - Composer Ken Hesketh [many years after the fact - and who am I to argue]. I can reveal now that he cited me in his chapter for the Cambridge Companion to Composition - due for publication, I am told later in 2022. Writing here on the 7th of April 2022 a very favourite and auspicious Date.

First Inv. for Djembe nos. 1 to 7 - Rh 124 to 130

- Inv. for Dj. In Group 4 - The Inner Blue Album Group -

Doesn’t it always go - you wait around forever and then two come
at once ?

[] Album Dm 13 - 2nd and 3rd Inv. for Djembe

Second. Inv. for Dj. nos. 1 to 8 - Rh 343 to 349

Third Inv. for Dj. nos. 1 to 6 - Rh 350 to 354

[] Album Dm 14 - Fourth Inventions for Djembe and Sonata for Solo Drum no. 8

A very important album for the way my two percussion series’ - The Drum Sonatas and the Inventions for Djembe - meet on it - on their paths across my music.

Fourth Inv. for Dj. nos. 1 to 6 - Rh 359 to 364


- Inv. for Dj. In Group 5 - The Outer Blue Album Group -

Fifth and sixth inventions for Djembe - the most difficult of the sets Demanding quite some concentration both to play and to listen to.

[] Album Dm 22 - Fifth Inventions for Djembe.

The Fifth inventions are also conceptually a little bit more difficult in that they have an Internal Set Structure - Sets A, B and C, or Parts 1, 2 and 3. This is not a silent structure they represent stages of difficulty and importance by length in the overall Suite - Fifth Inventions. Physically these Sets are separated by proportions of silence - the distinctions are aurally quite perceptible. This ‘Set’ structure recalls my work as an Artist - where groups of pictures could also be in sub groups or Sets.

Fifth Inv. for Dj. [Set A] - nos. 1 to 5 - Rh 451 to 455

Fifth Inv. for Dj. [Set B] - nos. 6 i & ii to 8 - Rh 456 to 458

Fifth Inv. for Dj. [Set C] - nos. 9 & 10 - Rh 459 & 460

It’s a Conceptual Path - a ritual - an order of service - note that there 11 parts to count with no. 6 splitting itself into two parts 6i and 6ii. They are parts of the same Invention but take a significant pause in between two chains of the same thought.


[] Album Dm 24 - Sixth inventions for Djembe

The Final set in this long process of discovery of techniques and sonorities for my Signature instrument, the Djembe - increasing in difficulty each time in performance and for audience perception of the process. Here I reach a point where I push as far as I can go almost to the point of incoherence - do I lose the message in the method ? In this direction this really is the end. Album Dm 25 - the Sonatas for Solo Drum nos. 11 and 12 - bring that series to a cannonic end hence 6 and 12 works between them - Canonical numbers of music publishing. Together these Series form the Core of my drum work.

Sixth Inv. for Dj. - nos. 1 to 14 - Rh 468 to 481


The Outer Blue Album Group - Dm Indices

An early reorganization of my music research interests had defined my music into dedicated sets of Albums. This way things of a kin got heard together - as one type of album or another - by Genre - or Tranche as I styled them. In this case Dm, music for Drums of various kinds. By Convention Dm.

Beginning as a percussionist my first 7 albums are for Drums of various kinds, Drum music or Dm, my first area of research interest or Tranche. I soon realised there was a second area of percussion, as a generality over a specialism - percussion on anything other than Drums, Metal Percussion music, or MPm. The third of five is the Phase music, realised by tape looping and timing, Phm. The fourth, a genre of Electro Acoustic composition, Music for Strings, Electronics and Percussion, or MSEP. The last genre is Electronic music, Em, taking the longest processing detour from an original acoustic source.

Album numbers 96 to the End [that is to my last numbered album] - form my Fifth ‘Group’ - a 5th time division across my Genres, my Outer Blue Group. The End being what it will be, but I have no plans, at the time of writing, in August 2020, to number any further albums, the given End being 142. This all builds on the foundational 'Blue Cherry Group' [where I had introduced my 5 areas of research interest] and the big 'New Horizon Group' - [where I explored to see where these five genres were leading me]. There then seemed to be a ‘band of gold’ across my discography. My Golden Band Group, that mark a particularly successful time for me. The albums that follow that, 76 to the End, are a ‘Blue Horizon’ - after the phrase ‘blue sky research’ - the ‘Blue Horizon Group.’ For convenience, I divided this Huge area into the Inner and the Outer Blue. So my Fourth Group is the Inner Blue Group. Then a Fifth and last Group builds upon that - my outer Blue Horizon - or Outer Blue Group.

There are thirteen Dm albums in the Outer Blue Group: Dm 15 - Dm 27. The Dm Arkiv album ‘Sometime live’ is not numbered.

Albums Dm 15 - 17 continue to document my ‘W’ studio sessions for Drum - with the Complete W Dances - spread between the three. Together with album Dm 14 in the Previous Group they form an important set documenting my Dm work at that Studio - with Dancer Choreographer Joanna Geldard. in our Etuda collaboration. As Etuda we recorded two further albums - Percussion W and Intonation W.

These sessions were also important to me for three large Solo Drum sonatas - nos. 8, 9 & 10. Nos. 9 & 10 are on the albums in this Group. Confusingly, no 8 is in the previous group. Just logistics and chronology - it missed the cut. It is on album Dm 14. Years later I recorded there again, this time with my Ensemble D’juil - cellist David Dhonau and Concert Flautist Sara Minelli - becoming our album D’juil 25 ‘Trio in five Parts.’ So . . .

[] Album Dm 15 Sn for Solo Drum no. 9 - together with the first of the W Dances.

[] Album Dm 16 W Dances 8 - 14 - pieces for Joanna Geldard to experimentally dance to.

[] Album Dm 17 the Sn for Solo Drum no. 10 [of the 12] - together with the last of the W Dances.

Albums Dm 18 - 21 are sets of works with conceptual twists.

[] Album Dm 18 Zen Yen Zen is a set of Meditations for Drum and Wood Block - where the wood block is a particular stroke of the Drum - or did you imagine that.

[] Album Dm 19 Metrognomics - Three pieces where I make you think a metrognome goes out of phase with me - in live acoustic recordings.

[] Album Dm 20 Table music - a suite of pieces performed on the Leather skins of Books, on a table - in a hard resonant chapel room. Stretching a point I think to say it was drum music. It is MPm by the definition ‘Anything other than Drums. it is though percussion on akin - so what defines a drum ? Skin or resonation - this has both. I set out to re-imagine a drum - and that is why this is still Drum music.

[] Album Dm 21 Konnyek - is a Drum Part - I recorded for Serbian Pianist Marina Vesic to respond to, for our collaboration ‘Konnyek’ - I kept this part as music in itself - as an album for me. In 2020 German wind specialist Marcus Wenninger added a flute part to make the album ‘Music in the wake of Konnyek’ for our Wenninger Broadhurst Collaboration.

Albums Dm 22 to 25 are a complex but important bunch with a frivolity here and there. Dm 22 and 24 are more conventional recordings but are very difficult multimovement pieces. Inventions that touch the limit of drumming possibility, in live acoustic performance. Inbetween them is another conceptual work Dm 23 Drum Mantra - with Maria Finch - that goes way beyond live human performance. Chronology is an awkward Mantra. Dm 25 ends the Drum Sonata series with an 11th and 12th Sn, reaching the Cannonical 12th and closing the series.

[] Album Dm 22 Fifth inventions for Djembe - a fifth set, and a growlingly difficult multi movement progression - for my signature instrument - in a syntax of figuration.

[] Album Dm 23 Drum Mantra - a fantastic feature I made with fellow drummer Maria Finch for the rattle and hum of it. It fits here, at this point, for being at an edge with perception.

[] Album Dm 24 Sixth Inventions for Djembe. I have tried each time, in each set of inventions - to push ever further - till now I run along the edge of intelligibility. This is the last of this series - it isn’t possible to go any further along this course and say anything with it - I find a limit of perception. The Six sets of inventions for this instrument form the core of my Drum music - alongside the twelve Sonatas for Solo Drum.

[] Album Dm 25 Sonatas for Solo Drum nos. 11 and 12 - the Solo Drum Sonata was at the core of my Drum music since the very beginning. Now fittingly, at the end, are the last two. Unlike the Inventions for Djembe I didn’t pursue difficulty for its own sake. In them I pursued a performative ideal for the sake of music in itself - The Canonical no. ‘12’ has brought them to an end.

[] Album Dm Arkiv Sometime live - a summation of live pieces.

Albums Dm 26 and 27 are as chalk and cheese.

[] Album Dm 26 Double Up a set of album length Studio pieces that blow the notion of Drumming music out of the water.

[] Album Dm 27 In an English Parish Church - live in that is. In a Church near me, I helped out at the Summer fete, by giving a performance in the Church. With a wonderful acoustic to play into and many noises off I close my numbered Dm Genre. What a journey it was.


Outer Blue Group - Dm []

DCM 096 Em 38 -- Blue Dark Marine
DCM 097 MSEP 22 -- Sn for Solo Vc 1, 2

[] DCM 098 Dm 15 -- Dm Sn no 9. 9 []

DCM 099 MSEP 23 -- Sn & St for S. Vc

[] DCM 100 Dm 16 -- W Dan. 8 -14 []

DCM 101 Em 39 -- Dodecette
DCM 102 MSEP 24 -- Luigi

[] DCM 103 Dm 17 -- Dm Sn no.10 []

DCM 104 MPm 12 -- Hamermusic
DCM 105 MSEP 25 -- Consort m. for Strings
DCM 106 MPm 13 -- 45’23 - Mp solo

[] DCM 107 Dm 18 -- Zen Yen Zen []
[] DCM 108 Dm 19 -- Metrognomics []

DCM 109 MSEP 26 -- Nabucco - Om
DCM 110 EM 40 -- Profusion
DCM 111 Em 41 -- Cant for P C
DCM 112 Phm 12 -- Past for wind gr.
DCM 113 Arkiv -- Arkiv
DCM 114 Em 42 -- Funeral Music
DCM 115 MSEP 27 -- TUOE [Sym 2]
DCM 116 MSEP 28 -- Sin Vit [Sym 3]
DCM 117 MSEP 29 -- Symphony 4

[] DCM 118 DM 20 -- Table music []
[] DCM 119 Dm 21 -- Konnyek []

DCM 120 MSEP 30 -- Codasolo

[] DCM 121 Dm 22 -- 5th Inv for Dj []
[] DCM 122 Dm 23 -- Drum Mantra []

DCM 123 MSEP 31 -- Symphony 5

[] DCM 124 Dm 24 -- 6th Inv for Dj []

DCM 125 MPm 14 -- Footfall A & B
DCM 126 MPm 15 -- Inv for Steel Casing
DCM 127 MPm 16 -- Imp in 4 and 3 Pts
DCM 128 MPm 17 -- Six Sns. for Metal P.
DCM 129 MPm 18 -- Inv for Industrial Unit
DCM 130 MPm 19 -- Now is N. t. T. f Dan
DCM 131 MPm 20 -- Parellelia
DCM 132 MSEP 32 -- Organum
DCM 133 MPm 21 -- Perfor in Plastic
DCM 134 Em 43 -- Geut - B Version
DCM 135 Em 44 -- Vib. Blue Light
DCM Ark Em Arkiv -- What nu. Added to

[] DCM 136 Dm 25 -- Sn for S. Dm 11 &12 []

DCM 137 MSEP 33 -- They Make Music

[] DCM 138 Dm 26 -- Double Up + Per PP []
[] DCM Ark Dm Arkiv -- Sometime Live []
[] DCM 139 Dm 27 -- In an English Pa Ch []

DCM 140 MPm 22 -- Quarlium
DCM 141 MSEP 34 -- A Little Less than K.
DCM 142 MSEP 35 -- Gregorious A & B
DCM 143 MSEP 36 -- Entangled A.B & C

The DCM album numbers list volumes in a [for the most part]
chronological edition - the ‘DCM Broadhurst Edition’ - Prepared for the British Library in 2020. The volumes or albums themselves were actually released as and when it was possible. The Edition though, was planed from the start to stand on the 'foundation Stone' of the Blue Cherry group.

The Rh catalogue, numbers my individual works in order of Completion.