Rolls from scratch

Gypsy life continues. Zipped back up to Seattle Wednesday right after the last lesson with Derek.

I missed a phone call from Eduardo inviting me to come play with Show Brazil on Thurs, bummer! I only heard the message after the show was over. dang. But it was for the best really because - get this - on Thursday I had - I had - I had a WHOLE DAY OFF. I took the WHOLE DAY OFF, a whole day in a row! It was amazing! I did my laundry! I took a shower! I paid my bills! It was the most incredible day!

Now it's over and I'm back to work of course. Working 2 days at the zoo this week; Friday & Saturday; and working 7 hrs at night Fri, and Sat, and all day Sun, on my new Vietnam fisheries project for NOAA. These NOAA jobs always about kill me. I'm doing it to fund my London samba trip; and save money for my next music year. Everything for music. But, oh man, I'm wiped out.

Some interesting fly-offs recently. The local zoo crows have been harassing our birds no end. Last week the crows chased our gyrfalcon Kenai straight into a tree - she actually crashed right into it, didnt' land in it exactly, just sort of went SMUSH into a bunch of branches with the crows right behind her. Today a crow bombed her and she vanished for several minutes and came back panting so hard that we figured she must have been in some kind of Olympic chase. (Gyrfalcons are the fastest bird in the world in level flight, up to 100mph, so that might have been quite a chase.) The week before that, Cree, the big ferruginous hawk female, took off due to crows; and of all the places in the zoo Cree could pick to land, she chose to land IN THE WOLF EXHIBIT, NEXT TO A WOLF. The wolf actually grabbed her! He had her wing in his mouth! But she got loose and flew back to Raptors with only a damp patch on the edge of her wing.

It would have been really nice to have been able to stay in Portland the last month. I would have been steadier and calmer about the Lions, for one thing. I would have been able to move in, and able to prep for my UP classes. It is the zoo that has kept pulling me up to Seattle. But - it has also been really good to have something in my life other than music. The birds have been amazing. I'll miss them. Especially Kenai and Cisco. They are just such incredible creatures. Today, at the zoo, is the first time I've felt relaxed all week; and the first time that the knot in my chest that's been there since Lions rehearsal has loosened up.

So. Worked at the zoo all day today. Got 6 hrs' work in on the Vietnam job. And glory be, I've actually had time to get in 3 real good runs of repinique practice - one yesterday and TWO today plus a fun stint on chocalho too! Plus a few hours watching Lions dance videos over and over. On repique, I had some good sessions, went through everything I could remember from Derek and Jorge, tried some bitty solo things (decided I should develop some pre-packaged solos, since I tend to panic so much otherwise, so I got a 4-bar one worked up and going pretty fast). And drilled myself silly on rolls. This Lions leading thing, whatever the hell else it does or doesn't lead to, it sure is making me practice and that is a GOOD THING. god damn... those rolls... they are SO close now. Pretty frequently now I actually manage to do a PERFECT roll at pretty fast tempo! oo! When it's perfect it's so startling - when the left hand is exactly in place - like a machine. When I hit it it's so startling it's like "whoa, who played that?"

It ain't anywhere near 100% yet. More like 25% perfect, 50% nonperfect, and 25% just crash in midstream, the horse tripping right over its own legs and going down ass over teakettle. But it's POSSIBLE now, I can feel it! I can feel it! It's so close....

If I ever succeed at these rolls, really fast clean rolls, it is going to be one of the great neurological triumphs of the century. Because I'm pretty sure I've had to grow these neurons from scratch. Been plugging at it four years now. It's almost there.

Repinique with Derek

Two fabulous lessons in a row from Derek in the past couple days. The first was a repique crash course with Chris and John J.

Finally I think I understand that beautiful pattern Lions use, which they seem to have got from Jorge:
C=center
S=rimshot
K = click on rim
L = hard left slap, accented
l = soft left finger, more like a tone

ok, here's the ride that I THINK Lions are using:
CSKL CCCl CSKL CCCL

Two things going on here that are a little different than the plain basic CSKL ride. (Or rather CSSL. Different opinions about that). First is the alternation of loud left slaps with softer tone-ier touches. Second is the alternation between CSK, pulling out to the rim, and CCC, staying in the center. I've been fascinated by this pattern ever since spotting Lions players doing it last year. I'm still not sure if I'm hearing this right but it seems like what they're doing. Anyway, put those two things together and you get a lovely alternating sound, very melodic.

The funny thing is, that pattern comes from Jorge. But when I spent my September in Oakland last year to study with Jorge, he showed me this instead:
CSSL ClCl CSSL CClC
So that's what I've been practicing, and it is also beautiful in a whole different way. It's just playing the terceiro pattern. Maybe Jorge showed me this one because he knows I'm a terceiro player??

The thing about Jorge is, he has SUCH a vast base of knowledge, that I can't always get a clear grasp on whether the thing he's showing me that particular lesson is the basic pattern, a common variation, or a rare solo fill, or even just an exercise. I remember getting completely confused about Viradouro caixa once because he'd happened to show a rare variation in a workshop and I thought that it was the basic pattern. I wish I could take all of next year just to move to Oakland and study with Jorge... or at least a summer... the month last year was not even remotely enough. (Hmm... an interesting thought, especially now that i know that my bio textbook employer has been bought by Benjamin-Cummings, which is in SF! I just had an exchange with an editor there who said she had some work coming up next year.)

ANYway. Derek also got us going on a partido-alto family of patterns that jibes with what I got from Dudu in Rio.
Dudu recommended starting with this:
lSSL SlSl SlSS LSlS

and Derek was using the exact same pattern, yay, plus a whole variety of variations. Some sparsed out to just the main rimshots, some all filled in. Layering pieces in and out of the basic ride.

We also spent a FASCINATING amount of time on the various ways to play what I've been calling the Short Riff, the little "brrr-da-BAH!" that occurs after band breaks (and-uh-FOUR) and, in longer form, near the end of repique calls (ee-and-uh-ONE). Derek recommended backing it up all the way to the previous beat and making it into a full five-count roll: four-ee-and-uh-ONE. He walked us through about 4 different ways to play this, with and without flams, filled out in rolls, or sparse and light. He had a way of doing a buzz that was barely even a buzz, just two taps really, that turned it all so liquid and clear. It suddenly became clear to me that if I could master these five-count-roll things with that same liquid light feel and that same beautiful control of the voicing, I could do almost anything on repique.... almost.... ifffffff I could master it!

Then we blasted through all the little repique pieces that occur in Lions entradas, calls, etc. Really fun.

Next day met up with him again for a candomble rhythm lesson. Usual Derek thing of "Oh, I don't really know that much about that" followed by a full hour of gigantically useful insights and beautiful patterns. First time it's ever really made sense to me, actually.

Drove back to Seattle that night tapping five-count rolls on my steering wheel. Stopped off at Lisette's to grab the dance video cd and immediately started studying the 6/8 and the Gina videos. Boy, the Gina cues make a LOT more sense once I see what the dancers are actually doing. Bizarre things like a 19-measure count make more sense when you see it's really four times through the same four-count kicky dance pattern, and then a pretty little 3-measure pose at the end.

It's weird, I don't really even want to lead but I just love the idea of improving my repique playing, and I also get a huge kick out of learning the dance cues. I always really dig knowing what the dancers are up to and trying to keep a holistic sense of the entire show in my head. But in my ideal world, I'd learn all the repique calls and be a HYPOTHETICAL back-up leader, but Brian would never have to actually use me! I'd really just be playing terceiro and enjoying the show!

Lions Leading 101

Lions Monday rehearsal was totally fun. They devoted it entirely to leader training.

It seems like it's kind of the same thing VamoLa tried of having a pool of multiple people who can all lead. But the pool's bigger and much stronger here: David, John J, Chris P, Mehmet, and me (and I think I'm forgetting somebody?) With that crew, and with Derek and Brian there too and Randy talking us through everything, wow. Again with the feeling like a tiny baby Lion cub for me!

Also had the maddening experience of muffing a solo call that I've played correctly the last 500 times I've played it. Totally nervous and flubbing all sorts of stuff and feeling like an idiot. It ain't ready till it's 100%, not 99.99%. Oh well, all part of the process, right? LIKE I WAS SAYING... I need to work on my repinique playing.

We spent the whole sectional just running repique stuff over and over, and attempting to simultaneously cue our way through a large chunk of the dance repertoire with Randy's guidance. Pretty funny to have 6 leaders all trying to cue each other to initiate a cue at the same time, 6 pairs of arms waving and 6 whistles blowing to a bemused little bateria of 3 or 4 players. But it was extremely helpful. Much is becoming clear.... Randy has a HUGE base of dancer cues and counts that he's keeping track of constantly, kind of mindblowing really.

And of course, I'm still the one playing catch-up on even learning the repertoire. I'm by far the newest person in the group, and a relatively new drummer too, so it's actually sort of ridiculous of me to be in this leader-training session at all, but I guess I am in there because I have done some leading before. I also have an incurable itch, in any group I play in, to understand the whole repertoire and all the cuing. (I usually end up learning the entire dance choreo repertoire too)

Also still feel weird about the Sunday session - I just found out that some of the things I said apparently came across totally bossy and know-it-all, which wasn't at ALL the way I'd meant it. Now I am even more bummed than I already was. I'm pretty sure they don't realize how intimidated and overwhelmed I actually feel about this group. So many of the people are such brilliant players and they have such a huge base of a full decade of Jorge/Boca/Bruno training. And such a rich repertoire. I'm envious, actually, of their 10 years of Jorge. I totally overstepped my bounds on Sunday and kind of feel like shit about it.

It's weird, I'm in such an odd position of having spent so much time in Rio and having played with so many groups there, and also have a fair bit of lead experience here... BUT... also being totally new to drumming, not really all that skilled, and new to this band. I ricochet all the time between feeling completely confident of what I know, and feeling like a damn fool idiot beginner. I snap into VamoLa leader mode and then snap right back into being just a puppy.

I do have to struggle to synchronize my own Rio training and reflexes with the vocabulary used here, 'cause there's definitely some differences. The paulinha/paradinha thing being a good example, and repinicado/carreteiro is another. The worst for me is the crossed-arms sign, which seems to be used up and down the US West Coast to mean "stop" but in both my Rio blocos (Monobloco and Banga) always meant "caixas". I wonder if that's an Odilon Costa caixa sign? 'Cause both those blocos had ties to him. I don't know. There's so many call systems in use in Rio.... Some seem nearly universally understood (the waving arms one is pretty widely known) but I suspect the crossed-arms-means-caixas thing is an oddity of Monobloco. Except that Banga uses it too. Ah, I dunno. Probably I'd have to spent five more years there to have even a chance of figuring it all out.

I also face a unique confusion of Jorge and Boca having taught SIMILAR BUT SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT repertoire to VamoLa, which of course I have been leading very recently. The Sergio, the paradinha set #1, the Gina, and a couple other things are minefields for me because they're so similar they trigger VamoLa reflexes. I can feel the train starting to veer onto the other track and I have to keep muttering "it's not VamoLa's Boca break #2, it's Lions Gina break #3. It's not VAMOLA'S Jorge Viradouro break 2, it's LIONS version of Jorge Viradouro break 2 which is SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT!"

So I always spend half the time in a little mental struggle of conflicting sign languages and conflicting Jorge/Boca versions.

But anyway it was good. It was totally cool and fun, actually. The proto-leaders seem to be starting to bond together into a little band-of-brothers thing that feels mutually supportive, and that's really cool. Brian made a big point to the group about how training new leaders has to be a priority: very helpful to hear that. The other band members were amazingly patient about just playing away and trying to follow all the multiple leader cues. And Derek was his usually brilliant self about breaking down stuff and looping it and catching the little fuzzies right away. I love watching the way Derek thinks about musical stuff.... He's strongly opinionated in a way that sometimes doesn't jibe with my own particular Rio training in little ways (usually in ways that expose some hole or misunderstanding on my part). The whole way he approaches samba is always very illuminating and beautiful to me. And his playing has a light, elegant feel that I find just mesmerizing. I've arranged another lesson with him tomorrow, with Chris & John, & am really looking forward to it.

Hung out afterwards at a little bar that was having a jazz open mic night. There were about 6 Lions there so I had some buddies to hang out with. Jeremy & Uma even offered to stuff my bike in their car to give me a ride home. It was really nice to feel like I've got some friends already in this town. Just hope they forgive me for Sunday.

Deja vu

I'm in Portland - this is weird, I actually have a house now. But it's almost unlivable. There is hot water and electricity now, but still no fridge, stove, bed or furniture, and most rooms are being painted. My pile of stuff is completely inaccessible so I just have 2 skirts, 3 tops and the same little skirt and flipflops day after day. Kind of like camping. So I am still basically homeless, like usual....

Lions are in a really interesting state right now - they have 3 brilliant professional leaders but all 3 are gone. Brian and Derek are touring constantly with Pink Martini; Randy's making a career shift into long-distance trucking! It's Randy's departure that's really triggering the crisis. Everyone's used to Brian and Derek vanishing periodically, but Randy's always been there, day after day, every single rehearsal, always on time, always with the door key and the surdos in his truck. Brilliant leading, knowing all the dance cues, gigmeister at every gig. "Randy is the rock," says Pauline, and she's right. Well, now Randy's going... I couldn't even open my beer without him the other day (he had a drum key in his back pocket that he was using to pop open the beer bottles). Who's going to open the beer when Randy leaves???

The leading situation has been muddy. I was getting constant requests to lead - but from regular Lions, not from the head honchos. The group's actually in a great position, with probably six or more excellent capable players who could all lead very well (all of whom play way better than me anyway & have years more experience). This is an astonishing talent base to have available, but few of them are available consistently and so it's been pretty confusing what exactly is going to happen. I feel like a reluctant leader myself since VamoLa's been wearing me out and I need a break; I know from experience that leading is too draining to do if you also have a full-time job - it just makes the rehearsals exhausting and no fun. Anyway, I'd tried to ask Lions admin about it but never got a reply, so I wasn't sure what was going on. On Sunday I got into what felt like a terribly awkward situation, with 3 Lions asking me at the beginning of rehearsal to please lead, but no guidance from any actual leaders. Nobody led for a long time and finally I stepped in and led a bit, but felt extremely weird and non-legitimate about it. It's not my group and I'm new there. Next thing I knew my VamoLa reflexes had gotten going full bore and I'd flown into a big thing about clave and the repique calls and getting crossed. Which they DON'T really need to hear about... they know that already!!

Once I instinctively used the waving-arms callout cue and it turns out they don't use that here; so I explained what it was, and then later realized that must have come across as "What, you guys don't know this standard Rio cue??" which wasn't what I'd meant it all.... I cringed later to see another player using my cue, 'cause I didn't at all mean for them to switch their cue.... they already have a perfectly good callout cue. dammit, I totally didn't mean to sound like such a snob. I was just trying to figure out what vocab they use here and was trying to adjust. It seemed like I was getting cold shoulders from folks afterwards and I felt pretty bad about it all.

oh well.

I think the cues here, if I have it figured out right, are:
crossed arms = stop with a cut? usually with a cut?
pull hands down = hard stop on 1

They don't seem to use the clap-over-head "repique call coming up" cue, or at least I haven't seen it yet, and they don't use the elaborately long waving-arms callout (the one I got to blathering about today). I haven't heard them do the long caixa callout. They've got about 5 of the 9 paradinhas that I use, plus an AWESOME cool buzzy one that is new to me. Most of the other 4 I've spotted embedded into some entrada or other.

They seem to use paradinhas mostly in set sequences as entradas, which is a really beautiful way of doing it, though I kind of miss the startle factor of random paradinhas just on their own.

I wonder if they'd be interested in learning the Banga entrada or the Monobloco entrada?

So anyway... I don't actually know whether I'd be useful as a leader or not.... it'd kind of be better if not... Felt kind of pushed into it today by circumstances and unhappy about it afterwards. I got to almost vibrating with worry and jumping with edgy comments during a big discussion that they had when Brian showed up, about the leader thing. It's all extremely deja-vu-y for me; once again the urgent need to learn an entire repertoire from scratch plus dance choreographies, once again with the leadership crisis and the worrying about keeping a group going. It's kind of freakily reminding me of VamoLa two years ago, actually. Many of the comments today were totally eerie for me since they were almost verbatim copies of stuff from VamoLa meetings back when they had their original massive leadership crisis. I was not anticipating having to jump into that kind of high-pressure leadership thing here. Kind of wanted a break from that; I wanted to lay back and just work on my new job and have fun working on pandeiro & caixa and working on pagode and maracatu.... I moved here so I could join a stable group that wasn't having constand leadership crises... ironic huh?

I really want it to work out here and am pretty worried that I may have screwed up today, acting too bossy, when it is totally not my place to do so. I need to calm down, stop fretting so much about the band, and just have faith that things will work out here and that I will not be homeless again next year.

Crawling toward Centralia

I'm writing this stuck on an Amtrak train outside Kelso, Washington. On my way from Portland to Seattle. I didn't want to leave Portland but I have to work in Seattle tomorrow. The Amtrak engineer just announced "Folks, as you gaze out the windows at the beautiful sunset of our magnificent Pacific Northwest, and imagine the pioneers when they first crossed these magnificent wildflower-covered prairies, trundling across them slowly in their covered wagons, please know that we at Amtrak aim to bring you the same historical experience AT THE SAME SPEED." Yes, there's been another "minor derailment" on the Seattle-Portland line and they're fixing the tracks. As we inch out of Kelso and toward Centralia, I'm now over two hours behind schedule and will miss the gig I'd hoped to play at in Seattle tonight.

What's going on with my Seattle/Portland life? Seattle has just been sinking its claws into me again and it's been unbelievably hard to tear free to get to Portland, WHICH IS WHERE I WANT TO BE. I moved to Portland Wednesday.... the real move, all my stuff and my bicycle and everything... and not 24 hours later had to get on a train and leave again. But money is money, and I used mine all up in Brazil, and the plain dollar truth is that my Portland job doesn't start till August 26 and meanwhile my Seattle jobs keep paying me. VamoLa keeps hiring me; and I'm locked in at the Seattle zoo every Friday and some Saturdays with the raptor program. I love the raptors but I'm terrifically frustrated every Friday by knowing I'm missing Portland's weekly pagode jam, a chance to learn from Amaro's beautiful pandeiro playing, missing a chance to play with Derek, missing a chance to play with Ned and all the others.... missing Donna's fabulous Friday and Saturday dance classes... and worst of all, MISSING LIONS REHEARSALS and MISSING LIONS GIGS. But there's no way around it. Every Lions rehearsal I go to costs me $60 in gas and six (or ten) hours in the car. (and that six, or ten, hours, translates to $300 in lost pay from NOAA.) While every VamoLa rehearsal nets me $75 cold cash. And every weekend in Seattle I get offered more gigs - 3 last weekend alone, my personal record. I finally earned my first $100 bill for samba....in Seattle.

The truth is I can't afford to be in Portland right now. But I hate feeling separated from the Lions. I've been so looking forward to playing with them. I made a special trip down, week before last, to go to their Monday rehearsal, only to find it had been cancelled. Then I had to miss last weekend too...(money again. I had $200 in gig offers Sat-Sun-Mon in Seattle; vs. the $60 it would have cost in gas to go to the Lions; and dammit, I just couldn't afford to go to the Lions.)

But it BITES! The Lions are training up some new leaders RIGHT NOW!!!! And I'd been wondering if I could be helpful with that. I am not really a good enough repique player, and the band is intimidating as hell, but I sure know how to cue groups through dance choreography - been doing that since 1993.

I have this weird sensation of a great opportunity slipping through my fingers - not the leading specifically, but just, hanging out with that caliber of players, missing a summer of Lions musicality. Already I can sense valued new friendships faltering because I haven't been giving them enough time.

I guess the simple truth is, I don't live in Portland yet....

Meanwhile I decided, I'll sink $150 into train tickets over the next ten days so that I can catch all four Lions rehearsals over the next two weekends. (well, two rehearsals & two sectionals) $35 per rehearsal. Every last rehearsal I can get to before I go to London. I'll take the train to Seattle just to work raptors, then take the next train right back down early the next morning. So here I am crawling toward Centralia.