In the happy tiny noisy bathroom

So one reason my finances are tight is that I'm paying through the nose for THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I'VE EVER LIVED IN MY LIFE, my friend Tamara's gorgeous little house. I met Tamara through the Lions - she just showed up one day, you know the type, just another brilliant classical musician with a degree in flute and piano and composition who is highly interested in ethnomusicology, writes most of the world music reviews for cdbaby.com, bashed up her arm rock climbing and took up surdo to help strengthen it, and decided to learn samba for kicks before going off on a 10-month musical research trip to Morocco. You know the type. (i.e. the awesome type.)

So she's off to Morocco, and I'm renting her amazing place. (with amazing piano, even). It's ALL MY OWN, JUST ME, and I can practice any time I want !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but to spare the neighbors as much as I can, I try to practice in the bathroom to help contain the noise.

My job is keeping me plenty busy right now - the baby elephant at the zoo, and my 26 students who are observing him, has put me over the top - but I am now able to squeeze in a tiny bit of practice every single day! Today's happy noisy bathroom routine, this afternoon just before I biked to school to tell the students all about the sex life of guinea pigs, was:

Five minutes' each of the "turning" instruments:
tamborim
frigideira
pandeiro

Ten minutes each of my "stick" instruments:
caixa
repinique

On caixa, I've been drilling myself to hell and back on the Lions' funk Brenda pattern. DETERMINED to get it as clean and perfect as possible. And drilling myself BRUTALLY on cleaning up the swing in every little quarter-note-motif of every little pattern that I do.

Five and ten minutes doesn't sound like very much. The funny thing is, every one of those instruments has improved by enormous leaps and bounds just in the week that I've been doing this.