The Riq

Position

Holding the Riq is a little tricky in the beginning. You open your left hand and place the instrument between your thumb and index finger. The thumb is placed on the back of one jingle pair and the index finger holds the drum at the edge of the skin. It is not a question of force but of balance. When you play, tilt the drum a little away from yourself to keep the jingles as quiet as possible.

Doum

For the bass sound you use your right index finger and hit the skin at the side so that 2/3 of the finger hit the skin.

Tak

This stroke is done with the ring finger. You hit the skin at the very edge of the drumhead.

Pa

This is what we know from other drums as slap. You hit the skin with all four fingertips in the midle of the drum.

the jingles

The jingles are mostly played with the left and right ringfingers.

It is also possible to produce a lot of different sounds by using different techniques of shaking and you can play different rolls using more fingers, most commonly the right index-, middle- and ringfinger.

The Riq – soft position

This position is used to play more softly than in the standard position. For holding the instrument you form a “U” with both hands and place the instruments between the thumbs and index fingers of both hands without grapping.

Doum

The bass stroke is done with the right ringfinger. The movement comes mostly from the wrist and the finger bounces off immediately.

Tak

This one is a little tricky. In this position “Tak” is not an open sound, but closed. To make the sound closed, you put both index fingers on the skin and press just a little bit while your ring fingers play on the edge of the skin. The difficult part is to close the “Tak” sounds, but lift your index fingers for the bass sound.

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