Two timbal myths

Two American myths about timbal have been bugging me recently - first, that your bloco has to have to have timbals to be able to play samba-reggae, and second, that it is a good idea to wear your timbal on a strap and to try to move while playing it. (parading, stepping with the rest of the band, whatever). I´ve been especially resistant to the Lions´ periodic attempts to get me to do those little band choreographies while I am playing timbal. Normally I dance a ton while playing, and I love doing choreographies on third surdo. But instinctively, on timbal, I don´t want to move at all, because I´m aiming for a very very VERY precise hand position on the timbal, and the second I start to move, I feel my playing go to hell - and also my hands can get unbelievably battered. (Thankfully, Brian has been backing me up on the don´t-force-the-timbals-to-move issue)

I wasn´t sure if this was because I´m a relative beginner, or what. So on my last 2 trips to Bahia I´ve been playing extra close attention to both these issues. Here´s what I´ve seen:

**Samba-reggae usually does NOT have timbal**
The classic samba-reggae bloco has surdos (playing 4 parts, if it´s a classic Olodum-style lineup), caixas, and repiniques (played with plastic rods in Olodum; sometimes with a wood stick in Ile Aiye). That´s it. Surdo, caixa, repinique. That´s what samba-reggae really is, at its core.
OK, so, yeah, occasionally a samba-reggae bloco will add in one or two extra instruments for fun to spice things up. I´ve seen tamborim in Ile Aiye, and shakers or scrapers in both Ile Aiye and Olodum. And yes, occasionally a timbal (especially likely if it is the tiny stage version of the band. Less likely in the full bloco). But it´s an extra. It´s not essential. It was never historically part of the samba-reggae when the genre was invented (by Ile Aiye, in the 70s) and made famous (in the 80s, by Olodum). As I understand it (from talking to players here) the timbal is really the drum of Timbalada, and was basically rescued from near-oblivion in the 1990s by Carlinhos Brown, the founder of Timbalada. And the way Brown really developed the timbal - and the way it is still used today, almost every time I´ve seen it used in Bahia - is on a stage, miked, stationary, in a stand, as part of a SMALL band. Not as part of a gigantic samba-reggae bloco. It simply can´t compete in volume, and it can´t take part in the bloco choreographies (see below).


**Timbals are almost always played with a stand, not with a strap.**
So far, every player I´ve seen here has used a stand for their timbal and has stood completely still when playing, even if the rest of the band was doing all kinds of choreographies. After yesterday´s lesson I cam see why. You really can´t play timbal properly if it´s hanging close to your body, and you definitely can´t play it properly if it´s moving a lot. So it seems to be that you have to choose between flashy choreography and good playing. Take your pick.

My timbal teacher said that in desperate circumstances, timbal players will use straps when forced to. (he demonstrated a parading style that involved holding the timbal off to the left side, almost like a dumbek). And yeah, people will do this in Carnaval. But it´s clearly not ideal - it´s an act of desperation, and it is not standard timbal technique, and nobody can really hear you, and you simply can´t play as well that way.

VINDICATED! Yeah!!