Third surdo for Lions!

Had a hurried dash to Portland yesterday to catch one more Lions rehearsal. 7:30am train out of Seattle and was in Portland by 11am, 3hr rehearsal, then drove back with Lisette. Hey... I love that train.... simple, easy, no security line, no hassle, and you end up right smack in the middle of town, not stuck way out in some airport. The ticket cost only a bit more than the gas would have cost. Then Lisette and I spent the whole drive back talking dance and drum, and listening to Pimsleur Portuguese lessons. Cracking up when it got to the part where they teach you how to say, in Portuguese: "There is a man here who talks a lot. About nothing. He talks very much. And he won't go away. Who is that man? I am leaving now." (Those Pimsleur lessons are pretty funny if you catch the subtext. One of the very earliest lessons is about who pays for the beer; and right after that is how to say "My wife is at the hotel. I am alone right now. My wife is not here." Now this whole segment for an American girl to be able to say "Who is that guy? He won't leave me alone!")

I split my train time between tackling the enormous backlog of grading for my UW classes, and listening to Lions rehearsal recordings to try to cram their repertoire into my head. Turns out I'll be the only third-surdo at their Folklife show. Their major third-surdo guy, Jeremy, a great player, can't make it. I thought I had most of their repertoire down but they pulled out a couple surprises today - an evil thing called Long Wagner that I swear I've never heard, and a baiao I've faked twice in performance but have never really learned, and that damned Area Code (named for its strange sequences of hits - 9-1-4, 2-1-6 and so on)....

Being lone third surdo will be a major thing for me - I've never yet been sole 3rd for the Lions, let alone at a prominent stage show. The Lions use the third to cue a fair number of breaks and entrances. Just little things, but if I miss them it has the potential to crash the band! The most important one is a flashy dancer stage entrance to Viradouro. Empty stage, dancers in big feather bikinis lined up in the wings, caixas ripping away on Viradouro all alone. Lead dancer gives a thumbs-up to the 3rd surdo player, and then the 3rd starts in with a 2-measure break that must be exactly the right thing, and dancers come prancing out, and the 3rd launches into a long, long solo. It's got to all line up exactly so that, a minute later, both dancers and drummers hit a gigantic break together, out of the blue. It's so impressive when we nail it, and this one is up to me to blow or not blow! So that's what I'll be practicing all week....

I spent most of the rehearsal being mesmerized by watching Donna Oefinger dance. I've still never, in all my travels, seen anyone with her sort of magnetic dance presence. I can't take my eyes off her. The thing about Donna is - she never fudges anything, ever. Every step is full on and clean, and she is dancing right out to her fingertips, every part of her body, every little hand gesture, every shoulderblade/ribcage subtlety, everything. Nothing forgotten, nothing done halfway. Sadly, she can't come to Folklife... but hopefully the Seattle crowd will get to see her at the Fundo gig.

The other thing about Donna is - she is really demanding on other dancers too. In the best way. She raises the bar and forces everybody to sharpen up, clean up the choreography, push their own bodies, push to the next level.

yeah, if you're going to do it, DO IT.

Obsessed?

My next little adventure: zooming down to Portland Sunday morning, for a whole FOUR hours there, to catch ONE Lions rehearsal. This is so silly. I'm spending $36 on a one-way train ticket, and getting up at 6am just to catch a 3.5 hr train from Seattle to Portland for ONE rehearsal....I'll only be in Portland from 11am to 3pm... then turning right around at 3pm and driving right back up to Seattle again. Then straight to VamoLa rehearsal, of course.

Why all this? I don't know, I just feel like I owe it to the Lions if I want to play with them at Folklife on 3rd. I need to get in another rehearsal. And 3rd requires a little extra. I want to be sure I've got the breaks straight; I've been playing with 2 other groups and am getting my breaks & hand signs mentallly scrambled again. And Folklife means a lot to me, personally. For the Lions it's just another gig; for me it's an annual ritual of re-discovery that has marked all the major changes in my life.

Another weekend devoted to samba. Obsessed!!

One of the new VamoLa players told me last week that when she joined a few months ago, people mentioned I might be back to teach soon. She didn't know me, so she asked what I was like, and apparently they told her "She's obsessed."

I was a little distressed to think that was the ONLY thing they'd say about me, but I didn't really mind, because it's true. Obsession it was, in all its good and its bad. I actually even wanted to do it that way. I thought, I'd rather go through 2 years full-on, every second of the day, and get really good, than 10 years half-assed and still be mediocre. I'd done half-assed before, with Balkan & Hungarian, and I was tired of being mediocre. I knew I had limited time to achieve what I wanted to achieve. You have to be obsessed for a while if you want to get good; that's really the only way.

I guess I just don't see the point in screwing around. Do it, or don't.

Then again, I'm also the kind of person who would think to herself "well, if I'm going to take any biology courses at all, I might as well move 3000 miles to the best biology program in the country, get an NSF fellowship, go do field research in Alaska for 6 years and get a PhD". All that without ever really caring, or even thinking, whether it was going to lead to a career or not. It was just - Do it, or don't.

Well, for drumming, the two years stretched to three. I still have my obsessed moments, like this Portland train trip, but actually I feel the obsession loosening now. Because I'm finally where I wanted to be! I've got good bands to play with and I can teach a bit and lead a bit. I actually felt it relax its hold on me this week, this very week, like a tight fist loosening up, when I realized I had a GOOD group to play with - and not one, but two! - and when I realized the teaching was going well and that I was making a difference for the students. Suddenly ..... hey.... this is where I wanted to be. WHEW. So now, at last, I no longer need to practice EVERY single minute of my waking life. The pressure is off.

I bought a book. I bought 3 books!! I signed up to volunteer with the raptors at the zoo. (First thing I have ever let conflict with music in about 3 years. ) Tonight I went to a movie. Pan's Labyrinth. I think this is almost the first movie I've been to in the U.S. for 3 years. That's how intense it's been. There has been nothing else.

One movie. Then I came back home to practice for the Lions. 'Cause I like it! ok, maybe it's not exactly obsession any more, but it's definitely still an addiction!

tudo beleza

I'm having so much fun with my new little group. I just started calling some friends up and inviting them to come over Saturdays to play. Damn, things come together fast when everybody is actually a drummer.... It's so cool to just be able to say "there's this really cool thing I always wanted to do" and show it to them and they just GET IT, instantly, right away, and they come right back at you with "But let's change this! And add a break! And, oh, that reminds me of this cool other thing that goes like this - " and off you go, everybody chiming in with their favorite ideas. Next thing you know you have a whole piece worked out - intro, breaks, a couple grooves.

Only 3 Saturdays and we already could basically play a gig. Plus it turns out, we already have 2 dancers - who knew - 2 of my dancer friends have already been getting gigs on their own and have been needing some drummers.

Today we tackled one of Timbalada's bitching afrosamba intros, a 6-measure timbal blitz that segues into a sweet afrosamba, flies one more triplet break and then settles into sort of a samba-reggae. The intro was a bit of a beast. It goes and skips the 1 just when you least expect it. So we all listened to the cd about ten thousand times and played it through another ten thousand, and hey, it sounded pretty good by the end. I was so proud of us!

Rehearsal ended, everyone was packing up, then somebody started a rumba and things got all out of control again. It looks like we can play some Cuban too. This is such a fine kind of thing to be a part of. I've always wanted to be in a tight little group that could really push me. Who knows what will come of it, but.... so far it's fun.

I've had a band name saved up for two years looking for a band: Beleza. It means "beauty" but it also is Rio street slang for "cool". Tudo beleza - cool, man.

This is silly, I'm only going to be here in this town for 2 more months and I'm already giving away my best band name. But even for just two months, it's worth it.

London bound

All right! I got my ticket to London! I got 12 days there in August, plus a little stopover in New York on the way. It's less time than I wanted there - I really wanted to spend the whole summer - but, damn, I also have to move to a new city, prep 3 major college classes I've never taught before & be ready to start on Aug. 27. I'm also still in a minor trauma about whether I can afford the time or money to go to samba camp this year. It ends ONE DAY before my teaching-of-3-new-college-classes starts, which is a potentially life-threatening nightmare that only another teacher can appreciate.

But anyway. I'll have almost 2 weeks in London. I'm so excited. I'm going to visit all the local samba groups that I can find, during their rehearsals that week. I'm bummed I can't stay for the Notting Hill Carnival - but I'll hit that next year!! And then, my 2nd weekend there, guess who's offering an all-day workshop on Saturday just outside of London? Monobloco! With their whole battery of teachers. So it's not just 1 guy doing a mixed-level workshop, like most workshops are: it's a whole fleet of workshops: advanced surdo (3 sessions in a row), advanced tamb (ditto), advanced caixa/rep (ditto), plus a full day of beginner workshops too. Covering a wide set of other rhythms besides samba - lots of the great MB arrangements. Then Sat night they'll play a full show, then Sunday all the students parade through the town and party all day and all night. This'll be perfect - I'm solid on MB's caixa repertoire but never got a solid fix on the rep and third-surdo parts, so I'll focus on those instead.

London here I come!!!

As for New York - I've got a nice little stopover planned there. I'd even been considering moving there for a while next year, but guess what, guess what ,guess what, I can't believe it: Claremont Riding Academy has just closed!!! The country's very oldest horse-rental stable, and the very best reason to visit New York City, closed!! Just two weeks ago!! (Sounds like the owner just got tired; it was still doing fine.)

I guess there are probably some other things to do in NYC, but I can't seem to think of any that will top galloping a huge rangy snorting Thoroughbred through Central Park. Ain't it a pity. I guess I'll find something to do....

I wonder if I can find a horse to rent in London??

roll arms

Well, VamoLa's been fun but challenging. I've gotten sucked in more than I expected. It still sort of gives me the spooks to be back there; I don't have good memories of my past in VamoLa, and I hate being reminded of those years. But luckily there aren't many old faces, and I've been changing the old repertoire around anyway. Right now they want quite a large amount of feedback and rearrangement, which is a managerial challenge and good leading practice for me.

I'm exhausted, though - I'm running extra classes and sectionals for them, and teaching or half-teaching most rehearsals; 2 or 3 evenings a week all told; all while running my other 2 classes for UW. Plus Lions every 2nd or 3rd weekend in Portland. Plus getting another little group started in Seattle.

But anyway, it's been challenging me to step up my repique lead skills, which are fairly wobbly since I've hardly ever played lead repique. I've been drilling on rolls and calls all week. Even just simple calls like this:

CRRS CRRS CRRS -R-R
-ZRR R-C- R--- ----

where
C= center hit with stick
R = rimshot with stick
S = slap with other hand

That's the classic short call-out for samba.

So, anyway, that "-ZRR" thing is actually kind of brutal (for me anyway) - a buzz and two rimshots. Getting from buzz to double rimshot that quick is not trivial. I'm always a little late on it. (there's a left hand slap nestled between the buzz and the first rimshot) So I'm trying to get my hands deadly quick for stuff like that. I can do rolls now, pretty well, but I still feel like they are not ready for prime-time. But with this intense practice on it, I feel like I'm pushing to a new level on the rolls.

Roll practice is very fatiguing. More than anything else in drumming, they're a real, physical, muscular workout - trying to improve your arms' absolute maximum speed and power. Drumming is usually about keeping yourself loose, but in fast rolls you have to freeze your upper body to keep it stable enough to brace the roll action. You can feel it: a huge band of muscle tightness locks into place during the roll, locking across both shoulders and down to both elbows. My arms are tired! I'm trying to only do the roll workouts every 3rd day because I know that muscles can't take that kind of heavy-duty workout every day. They need time to rebuild.

Meanwhile, I'm still chugging at pandeiro, and wishing I had time for timbal and tamborim. But I'm desperate for time and have had to table some things. If it weren't for this meddling teaching job....

The universal theory of samba

I went to a VamoLa Sunday practice today. Musically - and dance-ically too - they are solider than I thought last month. They've been in a thin phase recently, but it turns out they have a pretty good bank of talent now, and enough people to really pull it together. If they want to.

Tonight I played first-surdo again for VamoLa for the first time in ages. I was experimenting with seeing if I could push the band, since they've picked up a habit of sinking down into a mushy, elephantine tempo. I was pleased and surprised: after a few lurchy starts, they keyed right in and snapped into a clean, crisp, upbeat samba. We went ripping through piece after piece with no glitches at all. It suddenly sounded like the VamoLa of old.

Lesson learned: they just need a strong surdo section, surdos that PUSH, and they will be fine.

My Universal Theory of Samba is that all samba groups, everywhere, have the exact same problems. The same political and emotional problems, and the same musical problems. I've been in 10 groups now in 8 cities. The girl drummers always hate the current t-shirt. Everybody's always arguing over the costumes for the year's big parade. Advanced players are puzzling about how to add a cavaquinho when they don't have a sound system. The annual "We should to record a cd" effort that goes nowhere. The semi-annual panic at the discovery that the group doesn't have a back-up leader, and the annual surprise when whoever's been keeping the website together, and making practice cd's for free, suddenly burns out and quits.

But the only essential, universal musical truth is: Surdos Have To Be Solid. Every leader I've talked to agrees. You cannot play a good show without steady surdos; and nobody in the group can learn effectively, either.

So the classic challenge for a leader of a community groups is getting the surdo section locked in without hurting anybody.
What always happens is that people drift onto surdo when they're not ready for it. This has happened in every group I've ever played in, no exceptions! Either the group is going through a "small" phase and doesn't have any choice; or, a new person comes in and says they can play; or somebody just loves surdo; or has a surdo; or...whatever, suddenly there's someone new on surdo. And often they are doing quite well, and often they are improving steadily; but they are Not Quite Solid Enough - not yet. Then the band needs to play a show. Things crash in the show. Missed pickups, blown breaks. Train wreck. Ouch. Then the poor person is switched off surdo, and their little hearts are broken! Feelings are hurt and then everybody gets mad at the leader and then somebody quits, either the burned-out leader or the broken-hearted player.

If it sounds like I've seen this happen five or ten times, I have. It's always frustrating, because, in the majority of cases, the player would've turned out fine if they'd had another year of practice. But the thing is, the group needs to be doing performances during that year. Plus, remember, while surdos are wobbly, nobody else can learn either. So what do you do?

I've seen amateurs do very well and learn very fast on surdo, but only if the REST of the surdo section is completely solid. i.e. only one learner at a time. That way they get crystal-clear auditory feedback about where their own beat is falling; they can learn time from a solid partner; and they also can find their way back if they go astray. I saw this happen in the Lions and also in Banga: 1 fairly arhythmic person on surdo, the rest of the surdos very solid; 6 months later the arhythmic person was solid as a rock. But if more than 1 person is learning at once, it gets so muddy that nobody can learn; usually then a new surdo player needs 2 years, or longer, to lock in.

The thing about surdo is, it looks easy, but it's not. The mallet swing alone takes 3 months, even for pros; and then there's a layer of flippy mental weirdness to it - a mix of confidence, solid time through empty spaces, and undistractibility, that can take years.

The thing about surdo is, it affects the band so much. The deepest voice has the most power.

The thing about surdo is, it has to be 100%. On any other instrument, playing 99 measures correctly and blowing the 100th is not a problem. But on surdo you have to get all 100! Every time! 'Cause a single blown surdo measure can bring down the entire band. That's not true of any other instrument.

So what am I going to do in VamoLa? There are multiple people all trying to learn surdo simultaneously; and it's not hanging together.

OK, here's my ideas:
1. Train everybody in the group to play surdo and rotate everybody through it regularly. I don't want to do what I did before of closing off the surdo section entirely; that caused too many hurt feelings and eventually the surdo section shrank too much and nobody else knew how to play anything.
2. But in the "performance" surdo section: Try to have no more than 1 learner at a time. And that person on 2nd surdo.
3. Best surdo player on 1st surdo instead of 3rd, if they're willing. (They always would rather play 3rd.)
4. Require (or beg) surdos to have consistent attendance.
5. suggest wannabe surdos take lessons? But then I wonder if I should offer free lessons? 'Cause it wouldn't seem right to say "You have to take lessons" when I'd be the person benefiting financially from that. Yeah, free surdo lessons.
6. beg advanced players to rotate onto 1st & 2nd surdo when they are needed there. Offer them free beer or something.


and,
7. The crucial thing to convey to people is: if you aren't solid on surdo right now, it doesn't mean you won't ever be! It just means you need more time and more practice. Patience, practice, patience, practice...

Patience and practice. And not getting discouraged, and never taking it personally, and NEVER GIVING UP. Welcome to drumming!

Too many groups

I've been busy! Went down to the Portland the last 2 weekends to play with the Lions. Always a thrill to play with them, of course, and, just as exciting, there's now a great pagode scene in Portland - a great little band (Eleven O'Clock train) that has somehow, miraculously, started to pull a crowd that is a 50:50 mix of American and Brazilian. There was a shared birthday party last week (for Derek the American, and Amaro the Brazilian). Amaro brought all his Brazilian friends, Derek brought all the Lions (mostly Americans) and it was a wonderful mix. All the Americans were playing, all the Brazilians dancing and singing along. The Brazilians had of course brought an insane amount of food and stayed singing and dancing till 4am. So fun.

It was such a keen pleasure to hear and speak Portuguese again. I didn't realize how much I'd been missing it.

I got inspired about lessons; I tried to line up a repinique lesson with Derek, but our schedules didn't line up - I'll have to catch him next time he's in town. (I also am hoping to track down Randy). And it sounds like Amaro might start teaching! Pandeiro & pagode. That'd be fantastic for Portland.

Back in Seattle the next week, I got excited and started far too many things simultaneously: (1) Teaching a little low-key all-levels class on Mondays, (2) teaching a little bit for VamoLa Thursdays & Sundays, (3) Starting a new band on Saturdays... plus (4) my 80-hr a week teaching job at UW and (5) signing up to volunteer with the raptors at the zoo on Fridays. what am I, nuts? The Saturday band and the Friday raptor job are going to kill me. But I am so excited about both of them. Yesterday the tiny, new Saturday band had its first little practice, which went SO well and was SO fun that I was bouncing off the walls for hours after practice. I was so full of energy I could not stop playing! I practice Ramiro Musotto's repinique roll solos for hours, till I strained my thumb. So fun. More on the Sat thing & Ramiro's repinique stuff later.

But, ironically, most of my musical concentration right now is going to VamoLa. I once swore I'd never work for VamoLa again, because VamoLa has a 100% history of tearing me apart emotionally, to the point of fleeing the entire city and sometimes the continent. But so far it has actually been pretty fun. I got on surdo again today - and chocalho - and shekere. And danced a tiny bit. And had a good time. Until people started talking about Tom again afterwards!