GUERRA! GUERRA! GUERRA!

Had the best timbal lesson today that I've ever had in my life. I'd asked Ramiro Musotto for a recommendation (Ramiro is one of the very best musicians in all of Bahia, and he always steers me right when I'm looking for teachers) and he recommended a fellow to me by the name of Kaboduka, who played on Ramiro's recent dvd.

Kaboduka turned out to live in Liberdade. He met me in a tiny little house, led me down a tiny tiled hallway and into an astonishingly modern, soundproofed, air-conditioned recording studio hidden away in deep in the building. The place was packed with the craziest set of drums I've ever seen - even Olodum's psychedelic surdos had nothing on these. Magnificent racks of surdos with clear acrylic shells and strange tubes running through their insides, amazing custom-made djembes spray-painted in neon colors, timbals with huge, industrial-looking metal pipes sticking out of their sides, and the cleverest set of stands and racks that I've ever seen for timbals and surdos. Turns out Kaboduka had made everything, the drums, the drum racks, everything. It was gorgeous, really professionally done. I was thoroughly impressed.

Everything was spraypainted with a name, Kachorro Louco (Crazy Dog), a new band he's putting together that'll start playing this coming Carnaval season. Watch for it!

He asked me to do a few slaps, and I did 1 slap and he said immediately "No, stop". Turns out I had found the Michael Spiro of timbal: Kaboduka is, AT LAST, the first timbal teacher I've ever found who really insists on proper technique for timbal, and he is positively a demon about it. (He's almost the first teacher I've found who even has a clear idea what proper technique IS for timbal. Most teachers in the US who play timbal are really, at heart, conga or djembe players. Most approach timbal as a sort of strange-shaped conga, rather than as a unique drum that has its own technique, and few have really studied the Bahian style of playing.)

After we'd worked on the slap for a few minutes, he stopped me with a very important question:

"Would you rather learn lots of patterns (levadas), or would you rather spend your time today on learning how to play timbal right?"

He was asking seriously; he's had other students that he's asked the same question to, who replied they'd rather learn patterns, even though their technique was all wrong!

Timbal's a street drum that people usually learn on the fly. What does it mean to play a street drum the "right way"? There's several answers to that. One is, from a ethnomusicological point of view, the Bahian way is the right way. Another is, the right way is the way that gives you the best sound with the least pain. (The slappiest possible slap, and the toniest possible tone, and the bassiest possible bass, and always AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE.) The third is, the right way must be the way the masters play, since they are the best players, right? Anyway, Kaboduka's got "the right way" on all three counts (he is a high-end pro, and his main teachers were Carlinhos Brown and Ramiro Musotto, by the way).

So of course I chose to learn "the right way" rather than learn more patterns. I'd always rather fix technique and get the sound right. Patterns are easy to learn, and there are dozens of teachers for that. But it's hard to fix technique, and harder still to find someone who can teach it.

So. Here's some of what I learned:

KABODUKA'S PHILOSOPHY OF PLAYING TIMBAL: I've heard American players say "play more lightly", "don't hit the drum too hard" Kaboduka gave totally the opposite advice: Play harder. He said: "Playing timbal requires an enormous amount of force. AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF FORCE. You must be VERY STRONG. Much more than for conga or djembe. When you play timbal right, you must think that are attacking the timbal. It is a WAR! It is a WAR! You need FORCE! Think of the timbal as, HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! YOU ARE ATTACKING HIM! HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! IT IS A WAR!"

Throughout the entire lesson he would periodically correct me with "MORE FORCE! STRONGER! WAR! WAR! WAR!" By end of the two hours he would just yell "GUERRA!" (war!) periodically to keep me on my toes.

We spent a solid hour just working on slaps and tones, nonstop, verrry sloooowly, to a metronome. He wouldn't let me stop for a second, and kept zipping around me, peering at my hands from all angles, micro-adjusting the position of each hand, dozens of times, constantly demanding better slaps, better tones, better slaps, better tones, louder, LOUDER, WAR! WAR! WAR! By the end of the hour I was in that hallucinatory daze that comes from concentrating single-mindedly on slow drills, to a very loud, slow metronome, for long periods of time. Kaboduka's younger brother had joined in on the lesson by this time, and I'd barely even noticed that he was next to me. The whole world had become the metronome, and the slap, and the tone.

Finally he judged me ready to begin playing the simplest possible samba-reggae pattern. A bit nervous, I started in on it, and was shocked, I say, shocked, at how much better it sounded than it has ever sounded before. It sounded like a completely different player had taken over my drum. Whose hands were these? It was positively bizarre how different it sounded, and how strong and powerful, and how clear and confident it felt.

We went through 3 classic samba-reggae patterns, and each one was miles better than it has ever been before. It was terrifically gratifying, to feel the new slap and the new tone and the new force settling into my arms.

By the end of the two hours, though, I was completely wiped out. Hours later, now, sitting in a cafe typing this, my arms are still achey and trembling. And I can still hear Kaboduka yelling:

"GUERRA! GUERRA! GUERRA!" (WAR! WAR! WAR!)

***
A few more technique notes for the timbal players out there. Kaboduka's recommendations for good timbals, and where to get them, are at the end.

SLAP: Kaboduka's #1 fix for my slap was something that has baffled me since day 1 on timbal: where exactly should my hand be? His answer, put your hand WAY further into the drum that I had been doing. For the slap, he moved my hand so far in that the rim was hitting the heel of my hand - almost to the wrist! The rim should hit the meaty part at the base of the thumb. This was very comfortable, resulted in a VERY loud slap, and (at last) allowed me to get a good slap without bruising my hand.

TONE: Fix #1: He moved my hand slightly back out for the tone, so that the drum rim hit just wrist-ward of the base of the fingers. (i.e. the entire meaty part at the base of the knuckles is on the head of the drum, along with all of the fingers.) Fix #2: Lift the elbow a little so that the fingers meet the drum completely parallel to the head of the drum - all the parts of the hand that are going to contact the drum should all come to the drum simultaneously. Fix #3: Think of pressing into the drum a tiny bit. (this was a critical fix.) Fix #4, of course, was: MORE FORCE! WAR! WAR! WAR! He added, the tone must be every bit as powerful as the slap. You should be lifting your hand exactly as high, using exactly as much muscle, as your strongest, loudest slap. (the fingers stay slightly spread, btw, for both the slap & the tone.)

*****
What timbals to buy, and where: Kaboduka likes Bauer timbals, shuddered at Contemporanea's, and seemed neutral on Gope. He emphatically prefers the tall timbals and strongly advised me against buying a short one. After the lesson he took me to a great drum shop store that had the best selection of surdos, timbals and pandeiros that I've seen yet in Bahia, and here is the name & address & email of the store:
Silú Instrumentos Musicais
Rua Barão de Cotegipe, 10 Mares
CEP 40.445-000 Salvador, Bahia
Tel: (71) 3313-0076
email: musicom.br@bol.com.br

Anyone who wants a great timbal lesson in Bahia, contact me & I'll give you Kaboduka's #. He's worth it.