Timbal meta-blisters

My appreciation of the Portland music scene has suddenly sharpened with the knowledge that I might only be here one more spring and one more fall. Portland suddenly seems as precious and fleeting as Rio. And I feel that same pressure, as I did in Rio, of making every minute count! I suddenly thought yesterday, what have I been doing dicking around all fall watching "Destroyed in Seconds!" and "It's Me or the Dog!" on TV late at night, and playing Rolando on my iPhone, when I could have been taking lessons with the likes of Jesse and Jake and Blake and Derek and.... well, you get the idea.

Work got in the way a bit, as it tends to; I had to miss a great Gatas workshop on Friday, and then spend most of the weekend reading up on Archeopteryx, Darwin, and Easter Island. But I managed to carve out time for:

- an utterly fantastic Axe Dide rehearsal on Saturday that was SO great.. that is, everybody ELSE was so great... that it made me just want to sit in a corner and just watch everybody. The Axe Dide drummers frequently make me feel, just by their sheer brilliance, like I can barely even hold a drumstick and should just shut up and sit down. The really astonishing thing is that they are all so friendly and nice, despite their obvious superhuman brilliance. The main thing I took away from this rehearsal is: I have got to get my butt in gear on the conga support parts; I've got to GET TO WORK. So I finally drove over to the drum store, right after rehearsal, to buy a pair of timbale sticks so I can practice the support parts on conga. As I should have done months ago. Enough dicking around. (a lot of the orixa stuff is played with skinny sticks whapping on hand drums. So I needed some skinny sticks.)

- then a stunningly fun workshop today with Mark Lamson. He's one of the California Bata-Ketu Gods. California has quite a few drum gods actually, but two in particular are well known in the Brazilian scene here for their special brilliance in blending Cuban and Brazilian rhythms - that's Mark and his partner in crime Michael Spiro. One of the great things about being in Portland is we're just close enough to California that we can entice the California Gods up here every now and then. And just far enough that we really cherish those visits when they come, and make every minute count.

We spent the workshop today ALL on northeastern stuff - not the Cuban/Brazilian blend, I'd missed that workshop, just straight Brazilian today. Northeastern! Such a special treat I couldn't even decide what to play! I started on third (well, fourth) surdo, then suddenly thought "Caixa looks funner!" and hopped to caixa, then thought "Repinique looks even funner!" and was about to hop again when I spotted that Mark had a timbal he wasn't playing. I thought, timbal looks funnest of all! I pantomimed to Mark, can I play your timbal? (point to timbal, point to self, mime hands flapping in air, tip head to side with hopeful wide-eyed puppy look), and he nodded yes.

Well, GREAT day to be on timbal. With David, Jake and Zack on timbal too! Actually, with those three, I was starting to get that Axe Dide feeling ("I'm totally outclassed here, but maybe I can learn something") but it really started to click.

Except of course, for the pain. I guess I must have been moaning or grimacing or something, because eventually Mark said to me (in front of everybody) "You don't have to hurt yourself," after which Jake leaned over and whispered:

"Timbal .... IS.... PAIN!!!!!"

Hand drums can be brutal. Especially timbal, with its tight, bright head and metal rim; and if you're not callused up and you're out of practice and trying to be heard over a 40-person bateria... and Lions NEVER play timbal for three hours solid - usually it's twenty minutes max - and I haven't played it in 2 months, and so - well, it got so that after every call-out, as soon as the band fell silent and we all stopped playing, there was a weird synchronized movement in the timbal section: Everybody raising their hot, bleeding, sore hands to their mouths simultaneously, like a choreographed dance move, and either blowing on their palms, staring at them, or actually licking them (that was me). I couldn't help it! My palms were so itchy and sore. It was worth it, though, just for the inspiration that led to coining the new word:

"Meta-callus"

A meta-callus is a callus composed of several different calluses that start to overlap. A meta-callus can form by adding a callus to an existing callus; or it can form after you have had, what else, a meta-blister.

I was getting a good meta-blister going (timbal blister overlapping onto caixa blister). I can't even remember the last time I was driven on hand drums that hard, that long. Not even at Brazil camp, not even in Salvador. I'm not a natural hand drummer, either, so it was a struggle at first, but by the end things seemed like things started to... flow. They were flowing enough that I got really, really inspired. Flowing enough that when I got home I started a big fire in my wood stove, pulled my conga out of storage, pulled my musty dusty metronome out of the drawer, got out my brand-new timbale sticks, and my Axe Dide notes, and my Lamson timbal notes, signed up for a 3-month membership on Michael Spiro's instructional website, and actually got my butt in gear to work on conga. At last.

My favorite timbal pattern of the day was from an Ile Aiye style reggae type thing:

TS-S T-TT T-SS TT-T

with the hands as follows:
RL-L R-LR L-RL RL-L

(shown in clumps of 4 sixteenth notes, as usual. Hyphen means play nothing.)
That's not a proprietary pattern, else I wouldn't be sharing it. I wish you could hear Lamson's whole arrangement, but to do that, you gotta come to a Lamson workshop! Word to the wise, if you EVER get the chance for a lesson or workshop with Lamson, JUMP on it. I haven't even been able in this post to begin to describe his brilliant qualities as a teacher and a player; but trust me; he's golden.