(no subject)
Mar. 21st, 2005 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonWow, am I tired, but it's (mostly) a good tired. It's been a long day of work and writing and house renovations and drumming. Now I get to catch up on pending email and planning for weekend events (all day class here on Saturday followed by bardic circle, and extra-lovely houseguests coming and going Thursday-Monday)
I got hardwood laid in a swath about 4 ' wide by 24' long, and probably would have kept going tonight, but I managed to cleverly drive a 1" long wood splinter all the way in under the nail of my left thumb, and after pulling it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers and trying to keep from bleeding all over the nice new floor, I decided to call it a night. Ow ow ow. Not the place I would have chosen for a piercing, either -- too hard to keep clean ;> After I get some more done, I'll probably post a picture here (of the floor, not my thumb).
Figuring that if I was going to go through all the trouble to lay hardwood, I wanted wood that looked like wood, instead of wood that looks like a flawless plastic imitation of wood, I went for the "rustic" grade (which costs more than "select," go figure), and it was so worth it. Knots, worm holes, funky grain, lots of variation in color, and some of the most amazing pieces of figured oak I've ever seen. I've about tranced out just staring into some of these pieces of wood. Bliss.
I also got to drum for an hour and a half this evening with these folks, who are running a 10-week class about 25 min from my house. The fellow leading the class just got back from a month in Guinea working with his Malinke teachers there , and he came back with 20 new (well not new, quite traditional) polyrhythms. Drool. It was really good drumming intensely for that time, and I was very impressed both by the teacher and the other students. And it's really good for me to be there as a student, to focus on cleaning up my technique and pick up some more traditional polyrhythms. One unique aspect of Malinke drumming is routine use of three different types and sizes of djundjun/dundun (bass drum) -- more nifty parts to learn! I asked after class, and next week we're getting printed notation for the rhythms we'll be working with -- more bliss. I'm going to be running a semi-monthly drumming skill-sharing get together out here starting in April or May, and I will definitely be sharing this stuff, as well as at the places I'll be teaching over the Summer and Fall.
I got hardwood laid in a swath about 4 ' wide by 24' long, and probably would have kept going tonight, but I managed to cleverly drive a 1" long wood splinter all the way in under the nail of my left thumb, and after pulling it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers and trying to keep from bleeding all over the nice new floor, I decided to call it a night. Ow ow ow. Not the place I would have chosen for a piercing, either -- too hard to keep clean ;> After I get some more done, I'll probably post a picture here (of the floor, not my thumb).
Figuring that if I was going to go through all the trouble to lay hardwood, I wanted wood that looked like wood, instead of wood that looks like a flawless plastic imitation of wood, I went for the "rustic" grade (which costs more than "select," go figure), and it was so worth it. Knots, worm holes, funky grain, lots of variation in color, and some of the most amazing pieces of figured oak I've ever seen. I've about tranced out just staring into some of these pieces of wood. Bliss.
I also got to drum for an hour and a half this evening with these folks, who are running a 10-week class about 25 min from my house. The fellow leading the class just got back from a month in Guinea working with his Malinke teachers there , and he came back with 20 new (well not new, quite traditional) polyrhythms. Drool. It was really good drumming intensely for that time, and I was very impressed both by the teacher and the other students. And it's really good for me to be there as a student, to focus on cleaning up my technique and pick up some more traditional polyrhythms. One unique aspect of Malinke drumming is routine use of three different types and sizes of djundjun/dundun (bass drum) -- more nifty parts to learn! I asked after class, and next week we're getting printed notation for the rhythms we'll be working with -- more bliss. I'm going to be running a semi-monthly drumming skill-sharing get together out here starting in April or May, and I will definitely be sharing this stuff, as well as at the places I'll be teaching over the Summer and Fall.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-22 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-22 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-22 02:30 pm (UTC)Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-22 02:53 pm (UTC)Re: Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-22 02:55 pm (UTC)Drummers play all night //
rhythms here; rhythms there, and //
Dave pats his belly //
no subject
Date: 2005-03-22 03:03 pm (UTC)One interesting thing the class instructor said is that his African teachers are usually really happy to have Western students, because they know that even though they don't have the full cultural context, they'll probably have the fancy recording gear to tape this stuff, will notate it, etc, because especially in those parts of Africa becoming more urbanized, the trad. village-based instructional methods are getting lost as young people flock to the cities for work. So from a cultural point of view, it's less a matter of cultural strip-mining (which, though I'm all for syncretism, I hate to see), than that a lot of this stuff may be preserved nowhere else if western drummers don't go over and record it, learn it, and teach it now. The best solution would be to have the knowledge stay in context, in the village, but if the ways of life in the village are being changed and dissolving, at least the knowledge survives in some form.
Re: Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-22 03:27 pm (UTC)Re: Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-22 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-22 04:46 pm (UTC)Has the red crested crane passed //
And my title too? //
Re: Drumming?
Date: 2005-03-23 12:59 am (UTC)