3 Hours!

Tonight I taught for 3 hours. Three hours, people! Actually what amazes me was that I talked for 3 hours! Me! Talk! For 3 hours! I'm totally blowing my reputation as a shy recluse. But it was good. Good for me. Plus I think the classes went well. I got called in to sub for a class at the last minute, so I taught a seat-of-my-pants "Introduction to Taiko" class to people who thought they were coming for a hand-drumming class. And the nice thing was that I was completely prepared and not at all nervous. Then it was straight into my own taiko class. My students rock. They look awesome and have great attitudes. I'm lucky to be able to teach them.

But now I'm tired of my own voice and I think I will eat dinner and watch TV and try my best to veg-out like a parsnip.

I Disappoint Myself

Today we ran through Mokuyobi, and for an entire weekend a few weeks back I was working madly on composing a new solo. I wrote about 2/3 or 3/4 of a good solo, and drilled it, and was actually kind of happy with it, which is a new thing. But I didn't think we were working on it tonight, so I didn't practice, and when it came for my turn to play my solo, my mind went completely blank. Couldn't remember a lick of it. Couldn't remember a lick of any incarnation of ANY Mokuyobi solo I had ever composed, ever. It was awful. I was so mad at myself. Awful, awful. I will have to work on that some more. Plus my song. Plus everything else, which is piling up. Argh. Made a little progress on kata tonight though. I am learning how to learn, yet as a teacher I am also thinking on how to teach others how to learn, and how to teach others how to learn who learn different from me. That is my current challenge. Among other things.

Stubborn Head, Part 2

Oh I feel so awful! Tonight I finally pulled that head off the drum, but I had to commit a horrible act of vandalism to do so. That's what it felt like--a crime. After setting the drum up on the jacks and cranking them to a dangerous groaning, creaking point--nothing. So tonight I did the only other thing I could think of--I cut the head. At first I thought I could just cut right up the side and that would release the head, but there was no give whatsoever. The drum still sounded as good as it did before I took the tacks out. Then I made another cut and peeled off a section, and still nothing--plus it still sounded great! I think there was something about the initial stretching process that released animal goo-glue and binded the skin to the wood of the drum. It's not that the head was on tight, it's that it was glued on! So then I had to do the really awful thing of cutting the playing-part of the head right down the middle. It's a horrible feeling. Here I was working for my teacher, whom I respect tremendously, and whose instruments I respect tremendously, and what was I doing but the meanest most cruel thing you could do to a drum--cutting the head right down the center. And then in quarters! It was like burning books! Like stepping on flags! Like kicking kittens! Eventually, using muscles and pliers, I was able to get the head off. But sheesh. I hope I never have to do that again. I hope that my apologies to the cow and to Janet were heard on some sort of karmic level.

I hope I can redeem myself by putting on a really great new head. Yes.

Stubborn Head

I thought *I* was stubborn!! I'm working on re-heading a drum, and the old head is on so tight that I can't pull it off the drum--even after pulling all the tacks out! In fact, even after I pulled all the tacks out, the head sounds as good as it did before I pulled the tacks out! I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get that old head OFF! Tonight I enlisted some help and we put the drum on the stretching rack and I used 4 hydralic jacks and 3/8" manila rope to try to yank that head off, but all to no avail. When we had the head cranked down, it was making all sorts of mean and impending-doom-sounds, but OMG--nothing. I hit it with a heavy mallet over and over (plus I hit my own hand too--NOT GOOD) but nothing. I can't think of anything so stubborn!

Help! Anyone have any experience with this? I might have to try putting it back on the stretching rack again and what--maybe apply some WD-40 on it? I have no idea. Until then, that's what I'm doing with my spare time.

Listening

Lately, I've been doing a lot of listening. There has been some really great music coming my way. Interesting stuff just seems to flutter down from the ether to my window sill and like birds they sing to me. There are great multi-layered songs that arrive and and spawn ideas. The gears in my brain are turning. Here is my favorite song of the week:


You've heard it before, I'm sure. But doesn't it just make you happy? That's how I feel. Happy and inpired.

Song Writing

I need to write a song. I have no idea how to approach writing a song. But I have a number of diddles, and I have recordings of my diddles, so I've been listening to my recordings, and I think I have some ideas on how to put the diddles together. The most basic, ghostly outline of the structure has been roughly sketched-out/suggested to me. So now it should be easy, right?

Do you know what I need in order to write a song? Time to write it in. But you know what I'm discovering lately? The less time I have, the more productive I am. I knocked out a nice rough draft of a Mokuyobi solo last weekend. I thought we'd work on it on Sunday (but we didn't. Oh but who cares?) Coming up with a Mokuyobi solo has been popping up on my list of to-do for like a year now. No, wait. More than a year. I kinda like what I came up with. I'd like to have this New Song in a week or two. I think I can do that.

Tonight I had my first Tai Chi class of the year. I like the class. One of the nice things about the class is that after the deep breathing and all the excercises we do to get in touch with our bodies, you can kind of get a feel of what your body is really thinking. It's like you live in your body and move along through the world and your life in it, but you don't really get to feel what it's saying. I mean, not unless you injure it, but then it's too late. But after class I was listening to my body, and it said, I think that if you don't write your Mokuyobi solo and your Song and come up with a solid syllabus and long-term plans for your class, OH! and review all those songs we've already worked on, then we're going to have a nice ULCER. In college, when I was stressed out and over-caffienating myself, I developed what the doctor called a "pre-ulcer." A "pre-ulcer" is painful. A pre-ulcer had me doubled over with a bottle of the pink stuff in one hand and a telephone with my Mama on it in the other. Tonight my stomach was like: Listen to me, yo. Do the work and it will be ok. If not, then we'll be in touch again, are you (nudge nudge, wink wink) listening to me?? I believe my tummy.

A friend of mine told me that writing a song is a matter of trust (with yourself), and that I had to let myself relax into the creative process. Yes, this is probably true. But I think there is more going on here. I think I thrive a little off the stress. If I'm not creating these lofty and slightly out-of-reach goals for myself, then I won't do the work. So yes, all these tasks are TOTALLY out of reach (nudge nudge, wink wink).

But I can do it. I know it.

oy

I have to write a song out of some random diddles I was messing around with. And it's due in like--what time is it?--NOW! We have a concert coming up in April and we are aiming to have this (yet unwritten) song performance-ready by then. Not to mention I am elbow deep in new applications at work and my boss keeps coming in and smiling politely and asking what they can do to help, which is unnerving. And I have to have something ready for my own taiko class next week. Plus I have to revisit chekere, write a Mokuyobi solo I can live with, learn how to project, and go over all the songs we already know in our reperatoire.

I have to admit that this is pretty darn stressful. But really, if I just take a step back and look at what I have wanted for my life, what I have wanted to accomplish with it, what my goals are, what my dreams and aspirations are, then this is the best kind of stress. I mean, look. Everyone I care about is strong and healthy and relatively happy, there are no clouds of impending doom on my horizon, and I have the time and energy to focus on this. It's not bad. I just want to scream a little.

I think the most effective way I can get through all this is to shut the *@# up, hunker down, and start knocking all these things off my to-do list. SHUT UP. Yes. Now, what to do with a diddle???