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.