Music, music, music...
This is a line of surdos from my band last New Year's, I was playing primeira, looks like the last drum in the picture but I don't think that's actually me. Last Saturday we played two gigs: busking for Oxfam www.makepovertyhistory.org and a 60th birthday of the mother of a guy in our band called Dave. A typical conversation with Dave:
"Are you in the band?"
"Yes"
"What's your name"
"Jessica"
"What's your name again"
"Jessica"
"I haven't seen you before, are you in the band"
"Yes, I play the surdo"
"I play the tamborim...have you seen me play the tamborim...what's your name again?"
Actually, we have progressed onto a more fulfilling conversation by now but that was it for the first three times, Dave's mentally disabled, I think he's in his 30s and has the best rhythm in the band, so much so that he'll turn around to his section (the tamborims) and show them how to play properly, occasionally he'll also starts playing to us on the surdo if we're not driving the beat. His mother's birthday was very touching, during the speeches he wanted to say something, all he said was. "I want to thank AKSamba for playing for my Mum's birthday". We had no idea how much it meant to him, luckily some of us had stuck around to hear him say it. Actually we were stuck down the back of the hall with the surdo's, speech time wasn't the moment at which we could pick up our drums over our head and walk through the crowd.
Had a look at our maestre's band web site yesterday...have to check this out, can't believe we get to hang out with these talented folks...a 15 piece band who meld latin rhythms, samba, funk and hip hop.
