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.