ROARRRR!

I had this urgent need to get out of Seattle, and an unexpectedly free weekend since one of my classes' Sunday field trips got cancelled (the Aquarium is under construction, dang).

Suddenly I felt it - that TUG - that PULL - that "Hop in your car, drive to the next city down the coast and join a band!" So on Friday there I was tearing down to Portland, Oregon.

I don't know what it is about Portland. It's a little tiny city but it always seems to have so much going on, musically. It seems to attract a lot of artist refugees who can't afford the housing costs of the bigger cities in the West Coast. It's close enough to San Francisco to benefit from SF's amazing Brazilian talent, but Portland has a low enough cost-of-living that people can actually take time for a music hobby. And somehow it stays unified.

There was a choro performance Friday night followed by a pagode get-together at the pandeiro player's house. I missed the choro due to traffic, dang, but went along to the pagode and MAN it was fun! I thought I didn't like pagode maybe it's just that I don't like bad pagode, because I sure loved this Portland pagode. I ended up sitting between John on rebolo and Sue on a variety of shakers and bells. We weren't two songs into it when I realized what an extreme pleasure it was to be playing next to John; I'm rarely right next to him and, shit, he's SO clean and beautiful in his playing. He was on the bass drum, which is always the most critical part of any band. Holy smokes. Whenever he started playing it was like a wave of perfect confidence would flood through the room - suddenly everybody knew exactly what was happening and exactly where the beat was. I could have played pandeiro forever next to him.

This was a real pandeiro breakthrough for me, this pagode evening. The pandeiro felt so comfortable. I've finally gotten to that stage when I'm just not worried AT ALL any more about screwing up in front of people - the instrument just feels soooo comfortable, and sooooo familiar, like an extension of my hand. No worries. When I do screw up, it just seems funny instead of embarrassing. That's a stage of comfort that's been a long time coming.

There was another fantastic pandeiro player there - Amaro, who used to be a pro percussionist in Rio and then decided to come to the US to get a PhD in biology. We laughed about that since I've been doing exactly the opposite (I have a PhD in biology and then decided to become a percussionist). I was a little intimidated by his brilliant playing at first, but as soon as he saw me play he gave me the pandeiro and switched to tan-tan for the rest of the evening. So that was awfully cool for me.

What a cool bunch of people. They were so friendly. There were a bunch of Brazilians there & I finally got to talk Portuguese again!

That was all just a total bonus, 'cause I'd really come for the Lions show at Portland State's Carnival party Saturday night.
Woke up late on Saturday, ran around looking for white shoes for the gig, hauled my surdo & bag o' percussion toys over there. Walked in to an enormous party and INSTANTLY I'd been swept up into a completely other performance that I hadn't even known about. There was a great big maracatu group going on that needed another shekere. There's nothing like walking into a room and suddenly being flung on stage in a group you didn't even know existed 5 seconds before. Hey! PORTLAND HAS A MARACATU GROUP! I didn't know! AND THEY'RE GREAT! It was "just" a backup band for PSU's maracatu dance class but it was beautiful. Real alfaias and good players. Power and beauty. So I jumped on in on shekere, and we shekere'd away and I only screwed up 1 big break! (only one extra "shik!", though, it wasn't too bad.)

Then, boom, Lions. Got my surdo on and we got ready to parade in. Everybody dressed in white. Randy leading. He started in on repique -

ROAR.

Jeez. I haven't seen a full Lions show for a while. Tonight, WOW. They had about 30 drummers and 7 completely incredible dancers (including VamoLa dancer Lisette, who's been coming down for Lions shows!). The POWER. Randy called us in with a repique flourish - he is such a brilliant player that it immediately made me think "I need to practice repique for about 8 years before I can play it in this group" - and the band answered with "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!" that was so powerful that people in the audience started screaming.

We paraded in, blowing the ceiling off, got on stage and launched into full samba. God, it is such a pleasure to play third surdo flanked by such solid caixas & first & second surdos. I had a magnificently reliable first and second to my left and behind me, and a perfect caixa on my right, and those guys just carried me. We had 3 thirds in the band and we thirds all started just ripping it up. The POWER. I haven't felt anything like that since Rio.... it was like riding that lightning again.

The dancers came out, glittering and gleaming, lit up like angels....

They did a brilliant 6/8. A great samba-reggae. Two pro drummers from Ile Aiye (Marcio and Wagner, from San Francisco) had been flown up to join us and Marcio cued us through an on-the-fly samba-reggae that was just smoking. Wagner tearing it up on the timbal. Mocidade. Mangueira (It has a new spiffy end!).

I swear, the Lions are the best Brazilian-percussion band I've ever seen in North America. I might be wrong; I haven't been everywhere in the continent yet, but I've seen a lot. They're better than anything I saw in New York or San Francisco. Sure, there are glitches just like in any band, wobbles in the choreographies, sure, nobody's perfect. But they just have such a deep bench of experienced players; and each dancer is actually a good dancer and can samba her ass off. And every new member learns SO fast because they've got such a brilliantly clear sound surrounding them. I've never seen beginner sambistas learn faster than they do in the Lions.

It was an incredible show. Those dancers coming out, the caixas all around me powering me on, the surdos thundering away. It was an musical high like I haven't felt since playing in Rio. The whole hall seemed to expand; the air seemed to be glittering. Riding lightning again. I'm so damn proud to be a Lion.

First VamoLa rehearsal

Last night I was in a woeful state worrying about music. Then I woke up this morning out of an eerie dream which involved me in a desperate race for a train, and then inexplicably leading a samba group on the train. I was playing repique. Far at the edge of the train car, behind a glass partition, was my old drum teacher Tom watching me leading. He was stuck behind the glass wall so that he couldn't speak to me, nor I to him; but he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. I knew that he wanted to convey that he thought I was doing well; even though he couldn't speak to me. (In real life, Tom does not talk to me any more. So in all my dreams in which he appears, he never speaks.)

I woke up thinking, what do I actually want? What can I help create? No drum teacher can really help me much any more, not Tom, not anybody. I have to put my repique on and just do it.

What do I want?
I want to play in a really tight, really GOOD, pro level group.
I also want to be part of the family of a community group.
I want to teach and share what I've learned.
And I especially want to keep improving.
I want to hold on to the changes I've made in my life; and make more.
I do not want to go backwards.

So I sent out emails today to friends about putting a really good group together. Enough dithering and discussing about it; just do it. I'll see who I can round up to get together next weekend. Just play. Have fun. See what the possibilities are.

And I started practicing repique. In preparation for VamoLa and Lions both. The Lions are way beyond me, leading-wise, right now, but might as well start working on it and learning from the best.

I arranged to go to Portland tomorrow to play with the Lions in a big carnival show.

And I decided to start participating in Vamola again, and even offer a little low-key, low-pay, low-stress class on every other Monday. Why not; I want the practice teaching. And I want to have people around.

So I went to VamoLa tonight to check out rehearsal. They've got a GREAT new rehearsal space. It felt good; almost completely new people in a completely new space.

The samba was rocky, slow, and wobbly. I kept itching to stop and fix things. Surdos were way behind the beat; basically you'd call it in at 120 and they'd enter at 100bpm. First-surdos missing pickups or landing them late (understandable - several players were learning new repertoire & new instruments). Caixas having trouble sticking to tempo too (also understandable - caixa is damn hard to get to full tempo!). It's normal for new players to have exactly these problems; it's more than normal, it's inevitable. This is always where you start from. But between caixa and surdo both, the group basically had no way of holding to tempo. There was also some kind of erratic fuzz going on that I never could pin down ... caixas? repiques? what was it?? Something coming from the left. I could never identify it, but it was exactly like static appearing & disappearing on a radio. What was it?

Well, whatever, it's all normal and it'll clean up with a little work.

We also worked on maracatu, which was brand-new for most people. I'd brought 2 alfaias & it was awfully fun to show them around and lend them out. They are just so pretty! And it started to sound quite good. People got the hang of the alfaias amazingly fast, especially considering the weird left-hand flick of alfaia. Carl did a great job explaining the basics & soon it started to sound like real maracatu.

It was good to be there. The musical quality is not what I'm used to, but that's ok, the group is in a rebuilding stage and is training a bunch of new people. Every group has its ups and downs, and these times of re-training new crops of people; every single group I've been in, no exceptions.

To me it looks promising. Good happy energy and a lot of new faces. VamoLa could have a great year coming up. And it was a relief to have it be all-new people and an all-new rehearsal hall that I'd never seen before. No bad memories, no ghosts in the distance watching me from behind glass walls.

VamoLa de novo

I finally went to see VamoLa again last Sunday. Seattle's community samba group, and once my heart and soul. VamoLa has had a rocky time of it the past couple years, and almost died several times; and in the process a lot of people's feelings got hurt. Mine got hurt bad enough that it drove me out of Seattle entirely. A lot of folks quit. I was even hoping it would die. It seemed like time for a fresh start.

But, well, they were playing at Rhythm Festival so I went drifting over there to check it out. And hey... it was fun! It was rocky, yeah, a lot of missed breaks and messy flams, but they kept it going, and they looked like they were having a good time. And.... jeez, a TON new people! With a new music director, Grant, a fine drummer. Grant used to play in the Austin (Texas) group with Jacare, until he moved to Seattle recently. He innocently joined the local samba group and then watched it immediately implode around him. Boy, did he ever rise to the challenge. He & I overlapped a little bit, and we met for one crash-course repique lesson last fall during which I showed him every single repique call, paradinha, and solo of every piece in the entire repertoire; then I took off for Brazil, and Grant took it from there.

Well, he sounds great. Beautiful playing and fine leading. I think he's a better repique player than I am now. He has saved the group. And people looked happy.

I thought, oh! It's a completely different group!

They're not exactly playing tightly...it was pretty messy. Understandable, since they've apparently drafted a whole fleet of new people recently who are still learning the repertoire. And, well... somehow the messy breaks didn't matter. The audience had a great time anyway. A lot of the audience got up and danced. And VamoLa's got the essential spirit of it; everybody on stage was obviously having a good time, and once in a groove, the groove was good. The dancers have a full set of astonishing Rio bikini-and-headdress outfits now. Several dancers are dancing at professional level now, so that was great to see.

They did a lot of the old repertoire and it was interesting to hear it with fresh ears after having played with so many other groups now. Two of the major pieces that I'd never had a problem with before, I suddenly wanted to re-write completely. (the middle of the 6/8, which I used to like and now suddenly hate; the entire first half of Boca. Some of the paradinhas.) AND, VamoLa is STILL ENTERING SAMBA CROSSED!!! How did this ever happen? It kept making my ears itch. Somewhere in the past they were taught a "6-count call" that they have stuck to like glue - I have never known where it came from. It's two beats shorter than standard. That may seem like a minor thing; but it means they come halfway through the clave. What it really means, functionally, for the musicians, is that no VamoLa player can play with any other group - not in the Lions, not in Brazil, not at camp - without entering crossed (which is bad - it means you're playing the second half of your pattern while everyone else is on the first half. You get yelled at and you feel stupid!). There are some ways in which VamoLa is a little out in left field; they're also the only group I know that doesn't play, or even know, the Salgueiro/Viradouro caixa ride. It's cool to be a little different - actually I've always really liked VamoLa's slightly unusual repertoire and their hybrid pieces - but not at the expense of not knowing the common language.

Anyway, that should be an easy fix, if I can just convince the old-timers that it's worth making the switch.

So, hm.

It was fun to see them again. I hung out and had a beer afterwards. They are such good people. I found myself telling everybody that it was a good show, which didn't seem exactly correct because some things had been so messy, and yet it didn't seem incorrect either. Everybody'd had a good time and the audience got up and danced. The group is alive and growing; everybody's happy; that's a good place to grow from.

Pandeiro pattern for the day

rah, I HAVE been holding to my vow to play pandeiro every day. I don't know why but I suddenly got super-inspired about pandeiro as soon as I got back to the US. It's been really hard to play anything else, but totally easy to get going on pandeiro - a complete flip-flop from what it felt like in Rio, where pandeiro was hard but everything else was inspiring.

Here's the pattern I was working on today. It's a "finger funk", my term for funk patterns that have the downbeat on the finger.

Key: A finger bass is F. A thumb bass is T. A slap is S, and h is the heel of the hand.
Constant strong left hand turn.

I developed this from a Monobloco surdo pattern. It is nothing fancy, just a 16th-note funk. Aim for about 112bpm (per quarter note) and try it along with track 7 of Monobloco Ao Vivo.

Fhfh ShFh FhFh Shfh

Fhfh Shfh fhFh STfh

How it began

At last, AT LAST, I've unpacked my last box!! I've never had such a frantically hard-working welcome back to the US. I've been back exactly 1 month and had not yet finished unpacking. But today, I did it, I did it, I opened the last box, and there were my repique rods and caixa rods (whew! so that's where they were!). I assembled the repique; I roped together one of the alfaias last night and will do the other tomorrow; I put the timbal together.

And tonight I actually sat down and went through all my random boxes of papers and mail from the last 3 years. I literally haven't caught up with my mail for three years! I'd just been paying the most urgent bills, throwing everything else in boxes, everything lost and scrambled. I had pretty much abandoned my life. Just threw it all in boxes and ran away.

It was very odd to go through that much stuff from so far back. I found an entire nest of peculiar little scraps of paper with ornately detailed little scribbles of L's and H's and X's and dashes. One crumpled piece of paper was a huge chart of four columns of meticulous, tiny, four-digit numbers. What I'd found was my notes from my first attempts to understand Brazilian percussion. It was my first transcriptions, from back in the dark ages when I thought the 2 was the 1, and didn't know what the words "samba" or "swing" or "funk" or "groove" meant. Or "clave" or "buzz" or "flam" or "rimshot" or "roll"... uh, is that like when you roll the drum along the ground?? When I first joined the Seattle group, VamoLa, I was so mystified, and so shy; I didn't understand about 90% about what anybody was saying. Break? Groove? Turnaround? Whenever our leader Tom told me something, I used to just nod brightly and say "Uh huh"; but I never had any clue what the hell he was talking about. ("Start with that marcacao pick-up going into the second groove, y'know, the regular funk, right before the break, ok, Kathleen?" 'Uh huh." - shit, what the hell did he just say??? was that English??? ). It was all excellent training, I now realize, for getting through Banga and Monobloco rehearsals without knowing any Portuguese.

Somehow I thought they would kick me out of the group if they realized I didn't know anything.

The chart of numbers was an analysis I'd done of the exact number of milliseconds between 16th notes of a stretch of samba. Nerdy analytical Kathleen starting to get a glimmer that something was Not Square in that strange music from Brazil. Like a 17th-century exploring hacking my way into the Amazon, with just pen and paper and a digital sound-analysis program, I'd discovered the swing! I still had not heard the word "swing", at least not with any knowledge that it meant something specific.

I had the Mocidade caixa pattern written down three different ways with question marks all around it - I had no idea where the cycle began and had tried 3 different possible downbeats. I had three different mis-writes of the simplest possible bell pattern. I'd written partido alto as a 7/16 followed by a 9/16. I had a painfully detailed transcription of a cutter solo that I remember took me an entire night to write out. I look at it now and it's just the simplest, easiest, stupidest, third surdo variations! Just a simple 30 seconds' playing, all standard stuff.

I found the schedule of the folk festival where I first heard samba. I was walking to a Balkan band at a distant stage, and walked past VamoLa, the local Brazilian group,playing on a lawn nearby. I veered over to watch them; I never got to the Balkan band. I came back the next day to see them again. I joined the next Tuesday. Apparently I stuck the schedule on my desk when I got back, and never looked at my desk again, & a year and a half later shoved all the clutter on the desk into a box as I took off to Brazil; and there it was today, two years after that, sitting crumpled in the bottom of the box.

And then I found a complete pack of flyers for an entire year's performances by a local band, Quasi Nada. It was almost painful to look at. They were Seattle's wonderful Brazilian-funk samba-soul band, now defunct. It was an assemblage of my favorite local musicians: Chris Stromquist (also the drummer of Kultur Shock); Justin Cayou; Tom Armstrong (the director of VamoLa, who switched me onto first surdo the first time he heard me play. He became my first and most influential drum teacher). And wonderful singer Njoli Brown - oh, he had the most majestic velvety voice! (And he always completely ignored me every time he met me! Even though we'd even performed together a couple times, he never could remember my name.) Quasi Nada also had a full horn section! and a really great keyboardist. Oh, it was such a great band - mixed samba, funk, hip-hop, maracatu, edgy and rough, smooth and soulful, always grooving; treading that delicate line of the old and the new, the Brazilian and the American.

Quasi Nada was a turning point for me. I'd never heard anything like that. I never missed a show. It also marked the first time I'd ever heard pandeiro (played by Tom, of course). I fell head over heels for the band, for the music, for Vamola, for pandeiro, for samba, for Brazil; and, inevitably, for Tom, the person who was introducing me to it all. He was the first pro percussionist I'd ever met, and he had a dark-eyed coolness that fascinated a pretty large fraction of VamoLa, and he was one of the finest music teachers I've ever known. So once he switched me to first surdo, and then started showing me pandeiro (!), I was beyond help! (To his obvious dismay!)

I still miss Quasi Nada, and even Tom to some extent - though he's receded now into the "long-ago-former-teacher" past. I haven't spoken to him for years. He moved away, and our friendship (such as it was) ended, unfortunately on a rough enough note that I never even play his music any more. Quasi Nada died. And VamoLa gradually went downhill without him. I put my time in leading, with VamoLa; put in my time with the VamoLa surdos too, and tried hard to find other people in Seattle to play with. But it was all fizzling out. I felt like a bird who'd been blown briefly up above the clouds and then blown back down again; and I couldn't fly well enough to get back up there on my own.

Eventually I decided, hell with this, I'm going to Rio so I can continue on pandeiro. I'd caught a glimpse of what was possible, with music; I wasn't about to let it get away.

But even now I still miss that Quasi Nada music! And now I know why: it's the same approach as Monobloco & Bangalafumenga. What I love is NOT playing pagode the way it's always been played, or playing samba the way it's always been played. What I really love is taking those grand old rhythms and applying them into something new; taking modern songs and putting an ancient beat under them, powered by a wall of percussion. Take a funk or hip-hop or reggae tune and put a Brazilian beat under it. That Brazilian approach to percussion has a sonic richness, and a sheer power, that propels any song beyond belief, beyond anything that a single drumset player can accomplish on his own. Blend the old and the new. Take it forward.

All I've done in the last three years has been to try to develop my own skills so I could do that myself.

Oh, I was SO clueless! It was funny and sad, tonight, to look through those old notes and see how captivated and how lost I was, simultaneously, by that glittering new world that I was catching a glimpse of; that unexpected door sliding open.

Oh yeah... so THAT'S how it all began.

So I was sitting there laughing at my sheets of puzzled transcriptions, then realized I was late - late for playing! I stuffed all the little notes into a big ol' file ("Learning Samba"), unpacked my last box, found the missing repique rods, threw my repique together, and went and played with my friend Ben. It started as a sort of a lesson but then we just got to jamming, and jamming, we had two repiques and a shekere and a surdo & a couple of pandeiros... and he had the Tom Ze pagode opera, and great old weird LPs from all kinds of eras and we ended up playing along to old Ile Aiye and David Byrne and old funk stuff. We ended up both rocking out on pandeiro to an old funk LP he'd found somewhere, just grooving.... we had so much fun! ah, damn, it was cool! I came home on such a high.

Later I realized, oh! I've found my own Quasi Nada! I can build it on my own now. OK, so many there's not quite enough people yet (but we have a 3rd guy in mind) and definitely I need to work on everything more. But soon.