Don't rush the cut baby, don't tip the cut over!

Now about that cut. We were all rushing the cut. I am pretty sure it wasn't me (especially because I took myself out of it a few times by not playing it at all, and it rushed even more.) But not completely positive, who knows. The reason I was particularly focused in on this was that I've just come back to Portland from three months of playing with Cubango in Rio, and Monobloco and Banga too, where I had had sort of a Rushing Retraining experience.

When I arrived in Rio in late December, in all 3 groups I had the strangest sensation everybody mysteriously slowed down suddenly whenever they played a cut. They slowed down during the cut, they slowed the space after the cut, and they slowed again in the measure of samba right afterwards.

Of course, they were not slowing down at all. It's just that they weren't accelerating like I was used to - they were actually just holding tempo. But my ears had become so accustomed to hearing a rushed cut that, in my personal perceptual world, a rushed cut sounded "normal", and a steady cut sounded like "slowing down".

I don't know if it is Portland or the West Coast or Americans in general or what, but man do we rush, and especially our breaks and our cuts. And unfortunately, once an entire band calibrates to that and gets used to it, they are truly not aware that they are doing it. They literally can't hear it any more.

After a few weeks playing with Cubango and the other groups, I managed to recalibrate and play a good cut that actually held tempo. By the time Carnaval rolled around it was solid. But boy, the whole recalibration process made me paranoid - what else might I be hearing wrong? During the big Carnaval parade with Cubango, in the Sambodromo, I was on high alert at every single cut, thinking, what if I regress suddenly to my bad American habits and I rush the cut? what if I flam, right under the judges' box??? What if the Cubango directors kill me???? I have never been so hyper-paranoid about not rushing!!! It was a bit stressful, and really kind of hilarious because the cut is perhaps the single easiest thing to play in all of samba. Anyway I returned to the US with a freshly recalibrated ear, and a rock solid cut, which I was perceiving now almost visually, with a lovely long stateliness to the "two and", and a wide open sunny field through the 3 and 4.

Then I returned to Portland, and, of course, the very first samba rehearsal here, I was waaaaay behind everybody else on the cut, further behind on the next down beat and
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
behind everybody else by the time we were a measure into the samba. Everyone was looking around to see who was dragging so bad. The thing is, in a band, if you're the odd one out you are wrong by definition, even if you're really right. Dang it! Just two rehearsals later I could feel my lovely Cubango-calibrated cut degrading. I felt miserable, and a little angry even; angry at bandmates who joke about how they don't practice with metronomes, who joke about how the metronome's always slowing down, who giggle about how they rush the tamborim triplets. Now LISTEN UP. And you KNOW WHO YOU ARE. You the one who doesn't practice with a metronome. 'Cause you're too busy or you're too lazy or you think you don't need it or you think you're hot stuff or who knows why. You DO SO need it. Maybe not on the groove, but try running through all your breaks; you'll find one where you suck. And every time you play it badly, you're digging it deeper into your own brain. And it's not just you that you are f**kin with. if you don't play well, you are constantly f**kin up your friends' hard-earned musical skills too. Honestly. Is that any kind of a thing to do to your FRIENDS? You are messing up the band and degrading the sound and un-training people's ears. It's like they say about horses: Every time you get on a horse, you are either training it or untraining it. Same with your bandmates. And yourself. Honestly now. Get a grip and get that frikking metronome out RIGHT NOW.