Learning new kinds of drumming is so awesome! Tonight was my percussion class and we warmed up with some very basic drills. I love drills. If I could I would drill all day long. Michaelle threw in some toe-tapping  along to the patterns that made everything completely different and challenging. When I first learned taiko I was taught that if your feet left the ground that you lose your connection with the earth and all its energy. I like that philosophy, but learning to tap helps you understand the music and rhythms on a different level. It's good to get these different perspectives. Neither are wrong.

The focus of the class is conga, and though I originally wasn't interested in learning conga, the things we are learning now are profoundly interesting and informative about rhythm and its roots and its complexities that don't immediately present themselves when you first hear them. It feels so good to challenge the brain and get it out of its usual rut and comfort zone. I look forward to more learning!

Flu Shot Time!

Time to get your flu shot! I got mine today! It stung like  #$%@ but it didn't give me the usual day or two of ick and yuck and blah. I feel fine! Knock on wood. But seriously, the prick was only for a second, and the stinging only lasted an hour. Way better than unexpectedly crashing half-way through your day and then spending the next week in bed in a semi-conscious delirium while half-watching court TV and eating top ramen and leaving behind a trail of kleenex wherever you go. 

But you know, whatever. Up to you.

Escucha y Repita

When I was younger and learning spanish, I remember having to listen to a record of some disembodied spanish speaker (whom I always imagined was wearing bell bottoms and a turtle neck and maybe some clunky jewelry) and she would always preface whatever she was saying with: "Escucha y repita," which means listen and repeat. She nailed the intonation and rolled those r's so that escucha y rrrrepita is like a mantra of mine.

Anyhow I say all this because my taiko journey has been just that. My latest project is making some shime stands, and although I've made a stand once before, I wanted to make the tripod-ish version of the stand. So one night I borrowed a stand and made my own diagram and measurements of this:

And then went to Home Despot and got a bunch of lumber and screws and other hardware, and then flipped through this book that Janet gave me:
. . . and after a little trial and error and a bunch of just jumping in with a handsaw, some clamps, and my trusty drill gun, I came up with this: 

I bought those T-shaped metal braces but I don't think I need them. What do you think? I think it's sturdy enough as it is. I used a lot of glue and nice long screws. The other shime stand at RCW doesn't have the braces and I think it's holding up well. Plus that's nice birch hardwood.

I'm thinking of tung oiling that baby. I just need to make the crossbar thingie that connects the bottom sides together, and then it's done! One down, 2 more to go!

Fright Night Wooooo!

This past Saturday was Fright Night at RCW. It was the only fundraiser of the year for RCW, and based on the crowds, I think we did pretty good. Me and a couple other Maze folks helped Janet out with her Yokai Monster dungeon. We made at least one child cry, so of course it was completely worth it. Yes, I painted myself green, as seen here with Freakishly Tall Girl and Bad Santa (but without my shell. A shame that I didn't get any pics of myself in full kappa regalia):I am never putting on that green make-up ever again. As soon as I slathered it on it felt absolutely disgusting. What made it worse was that I was sweating like a fiend, and my sweat would fly around but it was green. I have green stains on my josuke and shime to permanently remind me of Fright Night. Now, I've said time and time again that I love green and it's my favorite color, but come on people, this is taking that obsession to a completely different level. But it was fun, really.

The other work-live units each hosted their offerings to Fright Night. My favorite was the rendition of Picasso's Guernica. In addition to the visual delight, they were actually a band playing live music. It was cool stuff--I wish I had stayed longer to hear more of it:It was also great to see Rhythmix transformed from modest cultural center, to a deadly house of horror:This is the haunted cabaret. It had a "bonedelier" (think chandelier) and creepy cobwebs and strategically placed ghoulishly dead dummies. Crissy screamed every time she walked in the door and was greeted by one of them. It was lifelike, I have to admit.
That baby is creepy, huh?


Janet preening a fellow Yokai:
Crissy, a.k.a. grudge girl:Fun! Hope you made it, and if not, maybe next year!

Water Water Everywhere . . .

I've got 40 feet of birch and all I need are a couple of bar clamps. And maybe a mitre box. Just wait, this pile of lumber is going to transform into 3 shime stands, yo!

Ok, Ok, not THAT pile of lumber in the picture. My pile is too lazy to be photographed.

Fright Night Prep

Today I met up with a whole gang of RCW folks at a place where they were having a huge costume blow-out sale. Janet is totally in the spirit of Fright Night, and she has some of us Maze people featured in her haunted house. There are 6 or 7 work/live units at RCW, and everyone is transforming their spaces into Harrowing Halloween Hostels of Horror! Janet's theme is Japanese Yokai monsters. I once took a test to find out which Japanese demon I was, and it turned out that I was a "kappa," or water/turtle demon that likes to eat children and fart and look up women's kimonos. I did not know that about myself! But it was funny because as Janet was thinking about what sort of creature I should be, she chose the kappa. Weird!

At the costume place today, I found an Oreo costume, which I transformed into the turtle-shell Kappa outfit above. I also found some cool green gloves and that raffia stuff. I've got zombie fingertips, green make-up and green hair color. We'll see how it all turns out. It should be creepy!  If I frighten just a few children then I will count this as a success.

Come on out and check out Fright Night for yourself! It's a fundraiser for RCW and it promises to be lots of fun. Oh, and bring the kids too! Bwah ha ha ha!!

Clave and Life and How Things Come Back Again

Tonight I had my first real lesson about clave. That's hard stuff. I mean, rhythmically the clave pattern isn't hard to play, but understanding how it fits into the rest of the music is another thing. It's not a straight beat--it drifts away from the downbeats and comes back again. It links all the pieces together. It changes from the first bar to the next but always comes back home again. It could take years to really understand all the complex ways clave works, but it does work and when you hear and know what is going on, it's a little like magic.

I've been taking beginning drumming lessons from this wonderful percussionist/teacher named Michaelle. I first met her at drum camp 3 years ago and was instantly in awe of her. I think everyone who sees her play is. She can play everything and she can play it perfect. That's not an exaggeration. Perfect timing is how Janet describes her. Actually what first impressed me about her was this one moment at the first drum camp 3 years ago. A student came up to her during a break between classes and asked her if she was going to teach tamborim. But Michaelle said she wasn't, and the student was disappointed, and half a beat later Michaelle said, "But I can teach you a little something right now," and she sat the student down and started teaching her a pattern. You could see how much the student appreciated it. That drum camp was special for me because it opened my heart up again to the world. I was mourning the loss of my mother then, and I felt lost, and I felt like I had lost my connection to music and people. But then Janet, the last flickering light in a world that had gone dark on me, asked me to come to camp with her and it was as if she had yanked the curtains open and let in the dazzling brilliance of daylight. She brought me to this special place where all these wonderful and inspiring women were making music together--this whole community--and I was invited in without question, and the whole experience brought me back into that world that I missed so much. Seeing Michaelle make that one connection with that one student is something I'll never forget. The spirit of that moment was so completely unselfish and embodied all the best things about sharing knowledge and kindness.

It all comes back full circle, doesn't it? Now I am taking a class from Michaelle, someone I would have never met on my own, who in a moment's time taught me so much about compassion and teaching, and I've taken that moment of kindness and try each week to carry that spirit with me as I teach my own class, and in my class I strive to pass on the lessons that my taiko community have taught me, all in a space created by Janet, who taught me much of what I know about taiko in the first place and who also has her own unique and wonderful vision about how art can create community. It kind of blows my mind a little thinking about all this tonight.

And I think this brings us back to clave again. That's what my journey is like. It's confusing at first. It has its surprises. It takes time to understand. But in the end it all fits together. You don't realize how important it is until you begin listen and see how all the disparate parts of your life come together and reveal themselves. About how each person is a beat that touches your life and makes sense of it, even if it takes years to understand why.

A Day at Studio D

Today we recorded a few tracks at a place called Studio D for a Ghosts and Girls related project. I have never stepped foot inside a recording studio before. I've never recorded anything professionally before. I've never even been in spitting range of such expensive mics before.

A few of us loaded in last night. My first impressions of the place were a mix of awe and naivete. Awe because there was so much high tech equipment and cool isolation rooms and computers and soundboards and giant speakers and acoustic panelling and the personnel were professional and knew everything. And there was the extreme naivete on my part because I just wanted to exclaim wow! and cool! and, this is just like in the movies! 

We set up the drums and they microphoned us and put mics up to pick up the "room." I have no clue about these things, but later when we actually recorded it sounded fabulous. It sounded much more immediate than when you play them live. 

And with all those mics around picking up everything, they did just that--picked up everything. Every sound. Every don and every ka. And every hesitation and missed beat. We recorded a little last night in sound check and listened to it and I realized, omg, those mics don't miss a thing. After I got home I went straight to the chasm to practice my timing. 

Today we recorded Chikara, a song so beautiful that I still get goosebumps sometimes when I hear it. The hard part of the song is the timing. There is a lot ma, and to make it harder, the song is in 6/8. Our first take was just awful for me. Second and third takes weren't much better. My problem is that when I'm nervous, I lose my confidence, and when I lose my confidence, I'm late. And as we were all standing there in that absolute silence, headphones on, mics on, the engineer setting things up in the booth, I started to get nervous. I don't mean just jittery, but full-body nervous. I've never been so nervous to play a song--ever. My whole body went cold and I started to shake, and of course when we started playing, that made me late and after that first missed beat, it's hard to get back.

After a while my nerves were starting to get the better of me and I had to force myself to focus. I had to tell myself to stop being nervous, and to just stop thinking too hard and to just feel the music and embrace it and allow it to take over my body and give me the joy and happiness that fuels my love for taiko in the first place.  After that it wasn't easy, but I managed to stay in time. I tried to strip away all my personal insecurities and I looked over at Janet and tried sinc-in with her breath and energy and play with her and forget that we were recording and instead tried to make music. 

Joel, the engineer guy, was a wiz at the controls. After we recorded a few takes, he managed to take the best parts of each take and pieced them together seamlessly. I don't really know how he did it. He would ask us for our input and then would start clicking away at the computer. He has mastered the use of the word "standby," which for some reason makes everyone shut up as he does his magic. Joel is great and funny too. Here is a pic of me and him at the controls. Of course I'm not controlling anything, but he was nice enough to let me look like I was:

After we finally were happy with Chikara, it was time for Kai to Ryu. For extended (and I mean extended) commentary on my trials and tribulations with Kai, do a search for it on this blog. I have struggled over this song for years. But after my last experience with it at drum camp I have released Kai to Ryu's power to intimidate or conquer me. I have been through every incarnation of frustration, depression and resignation. Janet said the song would be stressful to record, but I absolutely refused to let that guide me. We did a few takes of the song, ran into the usual brain farts and road blocks, and finally had something to piece together. But there is one tiny little moment that is a leap of faith to pull off, and just so beautiful when it goes right, but we couldn't get it right today. After we went through the song with the engineer, he asked if there was anything we wanted to work on, and I decided I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't mention that little part that we never got right during our takes. So we went back out and tried it. The first time was as bad as the original. The second was no better. And the third time I psyched myself up, looked over at Janet and said to myself, this is going to be it. And we nailed it.

And now that it is over, my brain is tired. I have the biggest head ache ever. But I won't end this on that note. We took some fun snapshots in between the stressful moments.

Matt the studio assistant looked strikingly like Josh Grobin. Crissy couldn't resist the urge to exploit the comparison:

Janet and Crissy hamming it up in Mark's isolation booth:

Me and my Kai to Ryu set-up:

Sheesh. I am glad I have this under my belt. I learned a lot about myself and the recording process. It is not easy. But now I have some things to think about, and some things to work on. More later when we get the songs mixed and mastered and all that jazz.

sigh.

I'm exhausted!