Thursday, January 29, 2009

Guaguanco Fieldrunners

Right, it turns out I suck at playing guaguanco on conga while watching one of Mike Spiro's instructional videos on congamasterclass.com while also trying to run a Fieldrunners game on my iPhone. It really seems like I ought to be able to let Fieldrunners be playing in the background - 'cause honestly, if I'm saving up to buy my next ion tower and all my Gatling guns are on automatic, can't I just let them fire away and rack up the points, while I learn a few more conga patterns in the meantime? But then Mike starts demonstrating a lovely little place to tuck in a slap in the guaguanco, and I've lost track of time, and I should have built my new Tesla ion tower A WHOLE MINUTE AGO, but I didn't, and an entire new squadron of massive motorcycle robots has swept past all my carefully placed Gatling guns and invaded my entire city. "DEFEAT!" screams the little iPhone, vibrating itself right off my snare drum pad in excitement as the tiny city goes up in flames. agh - now I've lost the clave again.

Viciously addictive little game. And here I swore I was only picking up the iPhone to use its free metronome app.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Most Unwanted Song

Here's the funniest music story I've heard in a while ... a segment on the radio show "This American Life" about two artists who have deliberately tried to create the "Most Unwanted Song in the World" by combining musical elements that many people despise. As determined by surveys. For example, many people say they hate tubas, and many people say they hate opera, and many people say they hate rap. So, a tuba-opera-rap song should be worst of all, right?

The more I listen to the Most Unwanted Song, the more I like it! It's got a weird kind of anti-charisma.

The "This American Life" podcast episode: (the part about Most Unwanted art is in the second half): http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1277
You can also go straight to the artists' own website and purchase the full song, but the This American Life has hilarious interviews & is much cheaper - though it doesn't have the entire song, just snippets of it. (People generally prefer short songs, so of course the Most Unwanted Song is quite long.)

PS the song's actually over ten years old - but for some inexplicable reason it was not a smash hit, so I hadn't heard it before.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Trill drill

This is a sickeningly busy time for me (semester just started again..dammit...). But I've been trying really hard to squeeze in some snippets of timbal practice here and there this week. Lamson's workshop got me going, as did Brian's addition to the 6/8, as did Zach's new twist the other day and Jake's killer rolls.

The workshop actually beat my hands up pretty severely; both palms were badly bruised all week. I couldn't even hold my hairbrush or turn a doorknob for about a week. (The way I described it to a friend is that I felt like I was "limping with my hands" for a week). My left palm is still acting weird and I have a bizarre callus on my left thumb that I think is actually a bone bruise, but I'm slowly getting back online again.

So anyway. Finally I can play a bit again, and I am doing trill drills. There seem to be a lot of timbal patterns recently that have a chain of RLR-L- units. (with the first "RL" being two thirty-seconds that subdivide a single sixteenth.) There's probably some formal name for those things, but I don't know it, so I've just been calling them "trills".

The thing about the trills is - well - take a look at a timbal trill again - notated in 32nd's:
RLR-L-

The first "RL" fits into one sixteenth, right? So here's my notation for how to show it in sixteenths:
2RL
(the idea of notating it with a "2" being "there's two hits here" - RL.)

OK. Thing is, it only takes up THREE sixteenths, right? That means, if you start playing a bunch of those in a row, in a typical even-count meter, they start to loop around. The starting point of the next one starts moving forward, constantly sliding earlier and earlier in relation to the main beat. Like, here's a chain of them:

2RL2RL2RL2RL2RL2

now break 'em into groups of four and see how they slide around against the main beat:
2RL2 RL2R L2RL 2RL2

The formal term for this sort of 3-against-2 thing is a "hemiola". (which until today I thought was spelled "remiola" - I've gotten that used to hearing Portuguese!) And, OK, according to this Wikipedia entry here, "hemiola" in classical music is supposed to be the brief occurrence of 2's in a piece that is really written in 3; but the musicians that I know seem always to use it exactly the opposite way: the brief occurrence of groups of 3's in a piece that is really in 2. Whatever. Anyway... this used to be the single fastest way that Jorge Alabe could trip me up in a repique lesson. He'd start playing little chains of 3's and within about four cycles, I'd completely lost my sense of the beat. I mean, completely. I would have to stay "Jorge, 'tou perdida" (Jorge, I'm lost) and he'd have to stop completely and start all over.

I still have a vivid memory of the painstaking process I had to go through to retain my sense of the beat through those maddening groups of 3's. Standing in my kitchen tapping out combinations while making nachos, and the nachos catching on fire because I got so into my tapping drills that I forgot to watch the timer. (ON FIRE. Big flames and everything. I threw the whole flaming mess out into the rain in the yard.) Walking down the street trying to hum hemiolas to myself, and almost falling over when my legs suddenly stopped working. And the revelation I suddenly had - OH!! every 3 quarter notes they suddenly line back up with the main beat!! And all of a sudden I could hear what Jorge was doing.

Hemiolas are sort of a secret-handshake thing among drummers. Amateurs tend to get bewildered by a chain of hemiolas; while the pros immediately recognize what is going on, and they also notice which other people have also recognized what is going on. That means you'll hear these sorts of exchange among pros (this is almost verbatim from an Axe Dide rehearsal and also a Lions rehearsal):

"What if we did, like, you know, one of these things for that break?" (plays a chain of 3's)
"Oh, right, for three counts?"
"No, longer."
"A measure and a half?"
"No, you know, longer."
"Oh you mean like, 3 bars long exactly, because it's, its', it's one of those 3-count guys who, a chain of 'em wraps around every three quarter notes and because 3 times 4 is 12 and so they add up to 12 and so they take 3 counts and after you've done 4 of those sets it's added up to 12 counts and so you're on the downbeat again after 3 bars."
"Yeah."

Which would be completely bewildering if both those people hadn't, at some point in their lives, put themselves through the grueling process of figuring those puppies out. Slapping the 3's with one hand and forcing yourself to tap the main beat with your foot, and count it out loud, and vice versa... trying to emphasize different parts of the 3's... and every combination you could think of to inflict on yourself.

In the end you no longer have to count it, mathematically. It's more like ... like when you learn to hear melody and harmony at the same time. Your conscious brain is playing the 3's, but some back part of your brain is also - silently, mutely, distantly - humming the main beat too. They're dancing against each other. And at the moment when the beats coincide again, those two parts of your brain do sort of a mental handshake, sort of a quiet "Hey!" (That's what it feel like to me, anyway.)

So anyway: Zach's idea for the second timbal intro in our new reggae is 9 1/3 of those suckers and then a quarter note of tones to wrap it up:

2RL2 RL2R L2RL 2RL2

RL2R L2RL 2RL2 TTTT

And just when I almost had it, Zach immediately said "No wait! Let's do this!"

2RL2 RL2R L2RL 2RL2

RL2R L2RL 2RL2 6! ... yeah, a 2 right into a fancy sestuplet roll to finish it off!

OK, so that kept me busy. That was for the reggae. (Which also has now developed, elsewhere in the piece, a showy timbal entrance of a full SIXTEEN counts of SESTUPLET rolls. That's, what, 96 of those lactic-acid devils in a row.)

MEANWHILE, we also have this other piece, a 6/8, that has a break in it where the band drops out and the timbals alone do four, clear, simple, flams. Right on the downbeats:
X-- X-- X-- X--

Perfectly do-able but a bit dull. So, Brian suddenly had a brainwave to do this instead:
2RL 2RL 2RL R--

which OUGHT to be doable, except when you're playing at 160 and you are not Zach or Brian or David or Jake, i.e.. if you are me. Those little trills are blistering at 160. For the safety of the band I am going to have to remove myself from this one. But I am drilling it every night. Trill drill, trill drill, trill drill....

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Don't be a parachuter or you'll pay the monkey!

There's been a steady flow of emails recently from Vitor, the inimitable president of the Ala of the Devoted in Império Serrano. As Carnaval draws nearer he's been on the warpath about making sure everybody KNOWS THE SAMBA. (the song.) This is so critically important that he said flat out: If you don't know the whole song, you will NOT parade with this ala.

Partway through one of these emails he said "We're not an ala of para-fallers" (para-quedistas) and "You don't want to be paying the monkey." Para-fallers? Paying the monkey? I gathered together my dwindling store of Portuguese neurons, and managed to compose an email in bad Portuguese to Vitor, asking if he might be willing to explain a few Portuguese phrases to me... especially, what does it mean to be a para-quedista, or to be paying the monkey?

Dear Vitor sent me a marvelously descriptive email right back, just a couple hours later. Here's an excerpt (translated by me, comments in brackets. Copied w/Vitor's permission. Portuguese version below for those who want to try reading it)

***
[Vitor says:]
A para-faller [para-quedista] is a person who jumps with a para-falls [para-quedas], one of those things that opens itself like a balloon and is used to break one's fall. It's used often in wars but is also a sport. [Aha! "Parachute"!] In Brazil, this expression means someone who is a stranger in that environment. Example: "Carlos, the manager of a store, fell by parachutes in the human resources meeting." This means that Carlos didn't understand what was going on in the meeting; it wasn't a meeting that he was prepared for. Ultimately, he shouldn't have been there. The contribution that he made was very small.

In Carnival, we use this phrase to refer to people who don't know the samba of an escola, and who end up participating in the parade without having prepared for it. It's used a lot to describe tourists who buy costumes that are sold with tourist packages and airfares. But it's not just the tourists. There are also parachuters in Leblon and even in Madureira.

"Paying the monkey" [pagar mico*] is used for many things - it's a versatile piece of slang. It can be used for any situation in which you have some reason to be ashamed. To go to a wedding reception wearing bermuda shorts would be to "pay a monkey". When a president makes an ill-advised remark, a prejudiced remark, he certainly has paid a monkey.
[end excerpt]
******
Me again. I must say Vitor's got a gift for explaining phrases like this - it's not easy to make these things clear to someone who doesn't know the language. The "parachuter" phrase makes sense now - and it's a perfect image, isn't it? A tourist who just parachuted down out of the sky, landed in the Sambodromo and hasn't the faintest idea what he's doing.

The origin of the monkey-paying phrase is not as instantly obvious (why would you pay a monkey if you are ashamed?). Maybe it's like those cryptic Aesop's fables references we use in English. But at least now I get what it's supposed to mean.

So what I have learned is... if you are headed to Carnival... do NOT be a parachuter, or you will definitely pay the monkey!!!

*********************
[The original Portuguese from Vitor:]

>"Não somos ala de para-quedista" O que e uma para-quedista?

Caramba.....essas explicações são mais dificeis....rss.....(nos Eua se usa
também escrever "rs rs" para simbolizar pequenas risadas?)

Para-quedista é a pessoa que pula de para-quedas, aquele instrumento que se abre como um balão usado para amortecer a queda. É muito usado em guerras mas também é um esporte. No Brasil essa expressão significa que alguém é estranho naquele ambiente.

Exemplo: Carlos, o diretor geral da empresa, caiu de para-quedas na reunião do departamento de recursos humanos

Isso quer dizer que Carlos não entendeu o que se passou na reunião, não era uma reunião para a qual ele estivesse preparado. No fundo, ele não deveria estar lá. A contribuição dele para a reunião foi pequena.

Em carnaval nos referimos a pessoas que não conhecem o samba da escola e que acabam por participar do desfile sem ter se preparado para isso. É um termo muito usado para turista que compram fantasias que são vendidas junto com pacotes turísticos e passagens aéreas. Mas não é exclusividade de turistas. Também pode existir para-quedista no Leblon ou mesmo em Madureira.


>"pagando mico" ?? mico é um animal, né?
>Eu peguei o sentido geral ("canta, gente, canta!!" né?) más os detalhes
>não...


O sentido geral é esse mesmo. Eu quis explicar que na ala todo mundo canta o samba e que se alguém aparecer sem cantar será certamente notado e provavelmente se envergonhará disso.

Pagar mico é usado pra muitas coisas, é uma gíria muito ampla. Pode ser usado pra qualquer situação que você tenha motivo de se envergonhar. Ir a uma festa de casamento vestindo bermudas é "pagar mico". Quando um presidente dá um declaração infeliz, preconceituosa, certamente ele pagou um mico.

Mico é um pequeno macaco.
[end excerpt]
***********

* biological clarification: OK, actually it's "to pay a marmoset". "Mico" is the word for the tiny New World monkeys that we call marmosets or tamarins. They are common around Rio, and you can sometimes even see them scampering along phone lines right in the city. The word for monkeys in general is actually "macaco". Which actually they sometimes translate as "macaque", except, in English, it should be "monkey" because "macaque" in English is only used for a family of Old World tailless monkeys whose Latin genus name is Macaca, like fore example the Rhesus macaques, except some people call those Rhesus monkeys.... oh, never mind. Anyway, micos are the little ones.

Check out sambagata's blog!

My friend Pauline is in Rio now, and she's started a great blog - www.sambagata.blogspot.com. It's about time that girl started a blog! I've always felt sort of silly about being the infamous Rio Blog Girl, because truth is, Pauline's been going to Rio for years and years and years longer than me, and is far better connected with the inside scene in the escolas. (And pagode, too.) Her best friends are some of the very top players in the city. (note to those who remember my older blog entries: Pauline's "Brazilian family" are the ones who treated my parents so marvelously during our visit to Mocidade.) I also have to add that she's also got one of the very best ears for swing and feel of samba of anyone I've ever me, maybe because she is both a wonderful samba dancer AND a wonderful player, a rare combination.

Pauline was actually my original connection to the Lions, too. We had a funny encounter in Rio my first time there - we spotted each other across the room in a samba dance class in Botafogo, and we both half-recognized each other and we were both trying to think: Do I know her from Mocidade?... from Lapa??... from the Sambodromo??? From Salvador???? But at the end of class we discovered we both were American, then that we were both from the Pacific Northwest, and then: "WAIT a minute, do I know you from SEATTLE?" Turned out we'd crossed paths once in Seattle, and we'd never actually seen each other in Brazil before at all. Pretty funny.

Anyway, she turned out to be from Portland, Oregon. And then I realized she was a player with the legendary, mythical group that people in Seattle used to talk about in hushed tones: The LIONS OF BATUCADA. I still remember sitting with her in the little cafe of the samba dance school and thinking: The Lions! She's with the Lions! I'm talking to a Lion! I begged her to see if I could come visit and watch a rehearsal someday. (Just watch; I didn't think I could play with them.)

So that's how I ended up here in Portland. Strange to think of it, really.... here I am today, teaching at the University of Portland - just today I was telling a whole pack of bright-eyed 18-year-olds all about Archeopteryx and how the horse got its hoof - and running the crazy gigantic study on the Asian elephant calf at the Oregon Zoo.... and practicing my new Lions timbal part tonight, and laughing with a bunch of Lions at tamborim sectional last night. All of it ultimately due to meeting Pauline.

Anyway - her blog is great, and she is, as usual, deep in the musical heart of Rio and having all kinds of great experiences. So check it out. And if you see her there, please give her a huge hug from me!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Portuguese lessons from the Ala dos Devotos

Even though I can't be in Rio, I'm apparently still on some of my old Rio email lists! I've been peppered recently with emails from various of my blocos and escolas, especially from my beloved Ala dos Devotos of Império Serrano, an ala (parade section) of especially die-hard devoted Império fans that I was lucky to parade with a few years ago.

My sambista friends are accustomed to looking down on people who "just" parade in an ala rather than parading with the bateria. Well, the Devotos changed my mind about that. The Ala dos Devotos is a "closed" ala, meaning tourists can't get in. (You have to be a friend of someone in the ala - thanks Olivia!).

It really feels different in a closed ala - you really feel the passion. What it really came down was: NO SLACKING, and you had BETTER have the entire song memorized, or god save you from the wrath of the ala director.

The Devotos take special pride in being the ala that singest the loudest, jumps the highest, knows the most words, has the most people show up for the earliest rehearsals, and generally is the most insane. I used to think that was all a bit of an exaggeration - surely every ala thinks it's the best ala? But then I heard through other, unbiased grapevines that the Devotos really do always sing loudest, and almost always have the most people at Império's Sambodromo rehearsals. (Everybody shows up for the Carnaval parade itself. But the mark of a dedicated ala is if they show up for the earlier rehearsals too.) Parading with the Devotos unprepared is like finding yourself at a Super Bowl game and suddenly realizing that the bunch of friends you're sitting with are not just any old fans, but COMPLETE FANATICS who are completely covered in body paint in the team's colors and are screaming at the top of their lungs nonstop for four hours. And they've brought extra body paint for you!

Maybe it's not quite like being in the bateria, but it's definitely a rush.

Anyway - I really love Vitor's emails, partly because they make me feel connected, and partly because they're such great Portuguese lessons! I pick up a new Portuguese colloquialism from him with practically every email. For anyone who wants a little practice at Portuguese, here are 3 recent emails that I think of as the Costume Size Lessons. Translations at the end. Later I'll post Vitor's long email of instructions for Friday's Sambodromo rehearsal, which has some interesting insights into the way the parades are judged. (all emails reposted with Vitor's permission)


*****************
LESSON 1 - SIZES

[Email from Vitor: ]

Encerrando a etapa de incrições, agora vamos pegar as medidas de todo
mundo.

Todos precisam me escrever passando as suas medidas.

Todos mesmo, incluindo os mais antigos porque eu perdi tudo com o roubo do meu micro no inicio desse ano.

O único que não precisa me mandar é o Marcos D. Ele foi o último a entrar na ala!!! Pois é, os últimos serão os primeiros porque ele foi o primeiro a me mandar as medidas.....rs

Nesse ano vamos precisar de :

1- Número de calçado (é uma sandália aberta, por isso sugiro pedir o
número certo)
2- Altura
3- Cintura
4- Tamanho (P, M, G ou GG)


******************************************************************************
LESSON 2. PRECISO DAS MEDIDAS!!!

[2 weeks later]

Olá gente amiga,

Tenho um monte de fotos pra compartilhar com vocês, mas antes tenho alguns lembretes.

1- Ainda estou aguardando os pagamentos de dezembro de algumas pessoas, ok?

2- Preciso das medidas gente!!! Muita gente ainda está faltando!!! Altura,
calçado, tamanho (P, M, G ou GG) e cintura. Tem muita gente confusa com lance de cintura. É simples gente: é uma medida aproximada para o ajuste do cinto. O cinto vem com elástico e cordão, ou seja, tem uma margem de manobra de uns 30 centímetros. Eu só tô pedindo as medidas de vocês para o cinto não ficar grande demais ou pequeno demais, é uma ajuste bem grosseiro. O ajuste fino quem vai dar são vocês com os cadaços e elásticos.


*******************************************************************************
LESSON 3: ME MANDEM LOGO AS MEDIDAS!!!!!!!!!

[one week later]

Queridéééézimosssss!!!

Por favor, me mandem logo as medidas de vocês!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lembrando que a medida da cintura não precisa ser exata. É só uma idéia pro cinto não ficar grande ou pequeno demais.

Segue a segunda e última remessa de fotos do ensaiso técnico de dezembro. Ainda não consigo identificar todos nas fotos, principalmente os novatos. Fiquem à vontade para me escrever e mostrá-los na fotos!!! Assim eu posso aprender melhor!! Quem quiser cópias em tamanho grande, me peça em pvt.

abraços a todos

vitor

******************************************************************************


TRANSLATION: LESSON 1
We're ending the inscription time [time for signing up] and now we need to get everybody's sizes.

Everybody needs to write me, giving me their sizes.

Really everybody, even the oldest [members of the ala], because I lost everything with the theft of my computer at the beginning of this year.

The only person who doesn't need to send me [the sizes] is Marcos D. He was the last to enter the ala! So, the last shall be first because he was first to send me sizes.... lol ("rs" = short for "risada", laugh)

This year we will need:
1 - Shoe size (it's an open sandal, so I suggest that you ask for the correct size) [in some situations ala directors advise you order a size larger or smaller than your usual size - KH]
2 - Height
3 - Waist
4 - Size (S, M, L or XL)


LESSON 2

Hi friends,
I have a pile of photos to share with you all, but first I have some reminders.

1 - I'm still waiting for December's payments from some people, ok?

2- I need those sizes people!!! Many people still haven't sent them in! [still are "lacking"] Height, shoe, size (S, M, L or XL) and waist. There are a lot of people who are confused about the waist thing. ["lance" = informally the deal, the situation, the thing]. It's simple, folks: it's a rough measurement for adjusting the belt. The belt comes with elastic and lace(?), that is, there's maneuvering room of about 30 centimeters. I'm only asking your sizes so that the belt won't be too big or too small, and it's a very rough measurement. The fine adjustment will be made by yourselves with the elastic.



LESSON 3
Very dear people!!!!!!!!!!

Please, send me your sizes soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember that the measurement of the waist doesn't have to be exact. It's just (to give me) an idea so that the belt won't be too large or too small.

What follows is the second batch of photos from the technical rehearsal in December. I still haven't managed to identify everybody in the photos, especially the new people. Feel free to write me to point out (the new people) in the photo!!! That way I'll learn them better!! Anybody who wants larger copies, ask me privately.

hugs to everyone

vitor

Sunday, January 11, 2009

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.

Friday, January 9, 2009

The siren song

I've a had a WHOLE MONTH off. From almost everything. A month off from the grueling grind of teaching; and the crushingly endless round of rehearsals. The Florida Keys, and Boston. I can't go to Brazil this Carnaval season, so as a substitute I thought at least I could go to Miami and get a bit of sun. (which turned out to be a brilliant idea. Miami is amazing.) And drop by the biology annual meeting in Boston.

I intended to practice during my month away - brought my pandeiro and tamborim - but, well, I didn't. Partly I never could quite get time away from people. Partly I just needed a break.

I knew I needed a break when I realized I'd been thinking "I have to go to rehearsal tonight" instead of "I get to go to rehearsal tonight,"

So I took a month off of music. Seems like I take a month-long hiatus, or two, every year. You need a break sometimes.

Instead of playing music, I did things like:

I laid in the hot hot sun...
... and lay there some more
Kayaked through the mangroves under the moonlight with my brother
... and through the sunset with my mom
... and birded with my dad
... and cracked up over silly Christmas gifts with my sister.
Discovered tiny phosphorescent creatures in the sand
Watched ibises, egrets, great white herons, pelicans fly by...
... and rays and nurse sharks and spiny lobsters shyly swimming past our porch at night.
Drove right through the Caribbean Sea on the Overseas Highway
Snorkelled in one of the best coral reefs in the U.S.
... and saw a tiny amazing school of cuttlefish, all lined up, all parallel, all looking at me. Space aliens.
... and a huge barracuda, hovering, motionless, below.
... and the most goddam crazy-colored parrotfish and angelfish
... and a triggerfish ate right out of my hand
... and I thought, this is the most beautiful place in the world.
Got kissed by a dolphin, for real
Met the original Bubble Butt himself, the first known sea turtle with bubble-butt syndrome
...nearly wept over a couple dozen other mangled, crippled sea turtles. Hit by boats. Tangled in lines.
...then was soothed at their serene acceptance of fate
...and the ridiculous way they blew water through their noses when I fed them. Who knew?
Kayaked in Biscayne Bay with two of my new best friends
Wept over a family member who died suddenly, a week before Christmas,
... spent hours talking with other family,
... and REFUSED to respond to any band or work emails during this time.
Saw the cousins I haven't seen since my childhood Christmases
Dove over and over into the green surf at Miami's South Beach.
... then, the next night, thought I was about going to DIE of cold at Boston's First Night
... where I tried to eat a french fry and it fell out of my mouth because my jaw was too cold to move!
... and where I accidentally something very cold and thought "What's that piece of ice?" and it was my leg.
... and I saw the smallest, coldest-looking samba band in the coldest parade I've ever watched.
... then later discovered that with wind chill it was -40. Oh.
... but had a great time anyway despite dying of hypothermia. (I was resurrected later)
Met several hundred baby lobsters in Boston,
... and was enchanted when they flipped on their backs and waved their little legs at me, begging for fish
Met some more sea turtles. Babies this time. Swimming in endless little circles.
Bumped into my favorite old field research friends and was invited to:
... study whales, sea turtles and sharks in Boston,
... apply for a fellowship for a year in Germany,
... study ground squirrel hibernation in northern Alaska,
... start up a new project on Hawaiian birds,
... chase crossbills through the Rocky Mountains,
... apply for plum jobs at two of the nation's top colleges.
... visit the magnificent Tioga Pass field site high in the Sierras in California.


It is my old life risen to claim me. Like an angel or a demon - I can't decide which.

So, the background here is: When I went to Brazil to study samba, I abandoned a PhD biology career. I did what is known as "Leaving Science". Scientists usually speak of such an occurrence in hushed tones: "Did you hear? He left science." With mournful faces all around. As if the person has died. And that's what it felt like, like I'd chosen to die.

OK, yeah, science is a rather small world, kind of a weird world, really. But - they are the brightest people I've ever had the honor to spend time with; and the most creative; and the least motivated by money; and the most curious; and the most generous. And they are the people who are unravelling the secrets of the universe. Trying to save the world. I truly see it that way. So, I was part of that story, once upon a time.

But I got stuck in the lab too long, and eventually I got bored, and then one day I heard samba; and one thing led to another, and I thought "To hell with it all" and I jumped off the bullet train, and took all my savings and went to Brazil.

I'd always been told: Once you leave science, you can't ever go back.

Well... I've been gone three years, and now, here at this meeting, the major national meeting of the year, I was overwhelmed. By the dozens and dozens of friends jumping on me with big bear hugs and asking where I'd been. By how wonderful it was to see them again. Their huge smiles and their bright spirits and their kindness. By their inviting me to go do fieldwork with them, and pointing me towards peachy jobs all over the place. My god. To be invited to apply for the job at ... well, never mind where, but JEEZ, to have the major person in charge of that search almost jumping on me, grabbing my arm hard, and saying "I'd love to see your application - please consider applying!" - wow. To have the guy who is on the search committee at another major university telling me... oh never mind, but again, wow, and the quantities of dollars he was talking about were truly ridiculous. To have one of the best research aquaria in the country inviting me to come work full time on WHALES and SEA TURTLES and SHARKS. (And tetras and lobsters and penguins, oh my.) - is this not every little girls' dream, to sail off into the ocean and go study whales?

None of it for sure, of course. All dependent on funding. Eight amazing job possibilities were offered to me, but all eight might fall through. But still. I was astonished, and floored, and grateful, and humbled, and honored.

And... I started to get curious again. I started to want to save the world again, and unravel the secrets of the universe. The old siren song. It was silent so long. Now I can hear it again.

But what about samba?

If I dive into research again... can I still play my samba, my choro, my maracatu?

You see, I would have to leave Portland. None of those 8 possible jobs are in Portland. How much would it hurt to leave Portland forever, and all my bands and all my friends? Not to mention my current job.

Would I still have Brazil? If I could still go to Brazil... If I could go even just every other year....