Push comes to shove

Sidy has been pushing me lately.

In class, he'll sit with his head bowed, listening to me. Sometimes watching my hands intently. Then, he will lift his head, signal us to stop and tell me what I am doing wrong. "Your tones and slaps are muddy. They need to be clearer." or "That rhythm is off. You know you know it, but you are thinking too much and aren't able to play it."

I find this, frankly, thrilling.

I know he worries that I feel he is picking on me, but it is the exact opposite. I feel like I have reached some kind of threshold, where suddenly, it isn't about me ham-fistedly banging out the basic rhythms, but indeed, finessing the real essence of a piece from my drum. It is a refining process. It is, in other words, the kind of work that someone beyond beginner stage gets to do.

And believe me, it is a stretch. If I think about the tones and slaps, I mess up. If I think too much about anything, I lose my concentration and mess up. I am at the stage now where it works best for me to imitate what Sidy plays, rather than try and sort out what is a tone or slap, count the number of strokes, etc. I used to need to write it all down in black and white so I could wrap my brain around it. Now it is better to just listen and see if I can hear what I need to play and then try to play it. Over and over again.

Rhythms build slowly. First, it is a matter of remembering the handing. Then, the tones and slaps. Then, the swing of a piece begins to emerge. Then I listen to Sidy play it again, and it becomes painfully clear that it will be years before I can play it as beautifully as he does.

But that, too, is thrilling.

The drum is done!

I couldn't pull the uprights tight enough, but went ahead and threw a couple rows of diamonds in so I could check out the sound.

Sidy came by for a lesson today and pronounced the drum good. He even played it for awhile. Let me tell you, that was a complete thrill, listening to a djembefola playing a drum I rebuilt.

After he left, I took the diamonds out again and pulled the verticals tighter.... but I think I need a tool to be able to get them really tight.

I made a homemade rope pulling tool, but I broke it yesterday! Ha!

A new djembe head

Whew.

I spent the day putting a new skin on my friend Lisa's drum... and let me tell you, it's hard work! With this one I was starting from scratch: new rings, new red fabric wrapping the top ring, new rope harness and verticals. The hardest part was getting the rings to stay even on top. Sidy might tell me it's not right and make me take it all out again.

But at the end of the day, I am excited that I was able to do it. I pulled the uprights tight enough so that the rings slipped down a little, where Lisa likes them. And I have wrapped the fur ring in an Ace bandage so it will dry nice and close to the drum.

Next up: shaving it and tightening some more. Then tune it up and hand it over to it's patient owner!

Making peace with my arms

I have always had fat arms. It runs in my family. So even for the 3 months that I was skinny in High School, my arms were chubby.

I hide my arms a lot. I wear 3/4 length sleeves, or at the very least, short sleeves. I am shy to wear tank tops, even on the hottest days. This is especially true when I am playing my drum because all the fat jiggles around and calls attention to itself.

But lately, I have been noticing that underneath the layer of extra flesh, muscles are forming. I can feel them. It makes me realize that even though they aren't pretty, my arms ARE the things that allow me to play my drum.

So I think it is time to make peace.

Rebuilding a drum

I have never been one for crafts or art. I just don't really have the attention span. My dad, for example, will attack a carpentry project and spend months on it, going over every detail, making sure it is beautiful and functional when it is finished.

I have never had the temperament for that. I rush stuff. I throw things together. I want things to get done.

So why, dear readers, do I love messing with fixing drums so much? This has been a complete revelation to me. A couple of months ago, my teacher started letting me work on drums. He started slow: tune a student's drum, unstring one with a broken head. Restring one that he had replaced a head on.

This week, he gave me my friend's drum to rebuild. It needs new rings, a new head, the whole deal. I measured the drum to fit brand spanking new cold rolled steel rings. My husband is having them made for me. I soaked the skin to get the old rings out. I undid all the ropes. And as soon as I have the new rings, I am going to wrap the rope ring with red fabric and string the rope loops and mount the skin on the flesh ring and run the uprights and pull them tight.

And for some reason, as I do this, step by step, I don't feel rushed at all. I don't feel like I want it to be done already. I am just enjoying each part of the process.

Finding my inner djembefola

At the drum circle in Cumberland last night, there was a point when a few of us djembe players strapped on our drums and stood up to play a slammin' rhythm that had the belly dancers going crazy.

I was the only woman, but baby, I manned up.

Now, before my drumming sisters out there give me grief about this, let me say that there is, for me, something kind of masculine about soloing on a djembe. I commented to my friend Sam that I felt really macho playing with the big boys and he laughed and said he tells his women students that when they play a djembe, they have to get in touch with their masculine side.

Am I saying that a woman can't be powerful? Not at all.

I experienced this same sort of phenomenon when I played roller blade hockey with a bunch of men in their twenties. I was the only woman on the team and had an absolute blast. There was never a point when I forgot that I was a woman, but it felt great getting into it with the boys and being able to play with them that way. (Until my husband nearly elbowed my teeth out!) And then I got pregnant and that was the end of that. But for one brief summer I would strap on my skates and grab a stick and check the guys and it was a blast. I felt great playing what was traditionally a man's game, with men.

I feel the same rush when I play the drum. Djembe is an instrument that has been traditionally played by men. It is great fun to jump in and go toe to toe (or hand to hand as the case may be) with a bunch of guys with big loud drums. 'Cause I got a big loud drum, too. And baby, I am not afraid to use it.

Finding the beat

I have been practicing to the house music I downloaded from Afrosonic's blog.

It is fun! And good because I can experiment and mess up and not feel self conscious about it.

So every day, I play to the music for awhile. And I take the music on my ipod when I go to the gym. And everyone must think I am off my rocker because I am mouthing drumbeats while riding the elliptical machine. And I don't give a damn because I am learning to hear the rhythms between the rhythms and that

is

cool.

A much better night

I decided to head over to Warren to see if I could redeem my drum circle disaster from last night. This time the drive was only 25 minutes, the sky was clear, there was a beautiful moon and the drumming was fine.

I had a great time, playing very hard and doing little solo riffs. I experimented with my slaps and tones and could hear a big difference between them. When I loosened up, I played all over the drum head and even threw in a couple of solo parts from Sounou. It was a small group tonight, but we had a good time and sounded great.

I hadn't planned to go because two drum circles in a row seems like a lot, but I am so glad I did.

Afterwards, as I was leaving, I bumped into my former step father and his friend and we had a great chat.

It was da bomb, baby.

Maybe I am ruined

for other teachers. For other styles. For other classes.

I drove 1 hour and 25 minutes to a drum circle north of Boston last night. In the pouring rain. Thanking God for antilock brakes as I hydroplaned along the highway.

It was false advertising.

This wasn't really a drum circle in the traditional sense. Drum circles are when you gather and someone starts a rhythm and everyone jumps in and plays along and there is sometimes chaos and sometimes an amazing groove, but always the freedom to mess around. In this case, there was clearly a teacher and he was teaching us rhythms to play and pretty much wanted us to stick to what he was teaching. I tried playing around with the rhythms a little bit, experimenting with playing inside them. But during the break, the teacher came over and told me that I was taking over as the leader when I did that and it meant that he couldn't change the tempo.

'Sorry' I said.

So for the second half I just played what he told us to play. Except when I didn't because I was bored out of my bloody mind and would have gotten up to leave except that the room was so small I felt it would have created a scene to do so.

On the way home from the drum circle which was really a class, sort of, I called Sidy.

'I just want to tell you that I am so glad you are my teacher' I laughed.

$20 in gas. $10 to get in. 3 hours of driving in the pouring rain.

The first time in a year that playing a drum wasn't fun.

Breakthrough

No, the angels didn't blow trumpets. The sky didn't crack open with sunbeams. The earth didn't shake.

But Sidy did lean over and hold out his fist for me to punch when I finally got the 3rd solo part of Mendiani down.

'You can feel it, now, can't you?' He asked.

'Yup'

And then we went on the 4th solo, which, remarkably, I really HAD remembered after hearing it only a couple times in class. I had a few little mistakes, but I was pretty darn close on the handing. Which means that now that I practiced it for a little while with Sidy, it's mine.

Lisa was here today too... which was fantastic because we are working on being able to jump in on each other's part. (She's on the dun duns.) We are trying to get so that we can just pick up in the correct place by listening to each other.

At the end of the lesson I felt great. Like, yeah, this is hard, but I can do it. We can do it.

And we rock.

Hallelujah.

(And maybe the angels were blowing a few horns. Who knows?)