I'm Learning the Conga!

I'm learning the conga and it is so much fun! I think the funnest part is that my brain is being forced to learn rhythm in a completely new way.  Instead of playing with sticks, I'm using my hands, and there is this heel-toe thing that is new to me. I feel like I'm getting two hits for the price of one and it totally throws me off--but in a good way. And we're learning the music in a more methodical, counting fashion. Not that there's anything wrong with kuchi shoga, but I'm actually learning things I already know but from a new perspective. Like tonight I was learning a bell pattern that had been taught to me two different ways before, but now it was this entirely new way, and it made so much more sense. It's refreshing, and I like it. Also when my teacher thinks that I've got a pattern, she likes to push me a little harder, and while the rest of the class is working on a rhythm, she'll reach out and tap me on the arm and motion to her hands, and I'll realize all of a sudden that she is introducing a variation, so I'll have to start playing the same rhythm, but a little more difficult and interesting. I like the way she doesn't have to say anything to teach me new things. I really appreciate that there are people in this world who push me. And Michaelle barely knows me, but she pushes me, and I am thankful for that.

Playing with my hands is a trip. I've been so busy at work shuffling papers, and when you move paper around like that you get hands full of paper cuts. I've got a particularly nasty one that I was afraid was going to pop open tonight, but it didn't, and phew!

I've also been trying to take our notation sheets (So helpful! So un-taiko!) and playing with my new garageband software to get the sounds recorded so I can hear them. I can't read western notation very well, but I'm learning! This class is great! I think I feel my brain growing.