I agree sticking to the classics is best, at least at first. Once you get a feel for the group you can sometimes “Take it up a notch” Often there is a lot of new dancers and Rhythms like Chaka will freak them out.

When I lead a drum circle I try and watch the dancers they tell me what I need to do.

If I see a lot of the dancers sitting and it is still early in the dancing, I try and call the rhythm and move on. If I see only the experienced dancers out there move on. Sometimes I do for a short time put in the complex stuff, but it is so the experienced dancers can have fun.

Repetition in a rhythm is good. Some dancers have told me repeat everything 4 times.

Remember what is fun for the drummer is not always fun for the dancers. There is one rhythm I have heard that some drummers play and they love it. Unfortunately the dancers hate the rhythm.

Lazz is fun but hard to play and keep together on. Finding a group to play it is difficult.

Could Adani be the rhythm you are thinking of ????

I would like to see the list of Classics expand but it takes time and playing the right new ones at a circle.

I know the rhythms I hear on the CDs are usually one of a handful that are just tweeked a little different.

Innanna and I chatted a bit about the overuse of chiftatelli the other night, so I understand that the requests are based on familiarity. It's just annoying when a dancer comes up to request it within two minutes of just having stopped playing it and begun with something else!

As for establishing the pattern solidly, an ensemble should be doing that nearly all the time. The base rhythm is established and held by the supporting roles--which is anybody not playing an arranged lead or a solo lead over the base. The rhythms tend to lose clarity when there are too many folks trying to fill over the base at the same time, particularly if they're all playing drums with similar voices. So the doholas and defs and such can always carry the base rhythms while the darbukas all play the same arranged lead and then trade off solo leads.

What we had going at KK worked reasonably well considering the folks playing haven't much time playing together. We had clear delineation between the drum voices, so we had a fairly clear "bass" rhythm with lead over it, and the top voice sometimes doing texture fills and a lower voice taking lead and so forth.

Nakano has a couple of rhythms in 5 or 10 in his book (and I'm still pushing him to get the New, Improved Edition underway). Samai is the only one expressly in 10, so I expect that's the one you're thinking of.

Note: I'm scoring a collection of rhythms using Overture and am trying to get recording capability put together (I can record my keyboard currently, though none of my drums). Once I get the former finished and the latter accomplished, I'll have CDs (and accompanying booklets) with several dozen rhythms recorded available--if only to provide alternatives to baladi for drummers and chiftatelli for dancers!

And where did the dancers all run off to? They were there for a bit and then the stage was bare except for us.