incorporating bata drums in secular settings

[bongosnotbombs]

Where it all started from...

[Garvin]

Great discussion here... As a novice student of secular bata I have come across situations in which certain individuals in the group were adamantly opposed to performing any of the bata repetoire in bars/clubs. As an outsider at the time, I didn't understand the issue at all and just wanted to play. Having had further exposure to the debate, I would still play, but with the measured reverence and understanding of the tradition.

[Thomas Altmann]

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within limits to be found experimentally and experientially. These beliefs are limits to be transcended."
The Center of the Cyclone by John C. Lilly

Wonderful. Belief in transition from intuitive knowledge to a magical technique. Could be an aspect of the Odu Obara ("A brave king doesn't lie"/"From legends truths are born"). I don't understand the last sentence, however. It seems to contradict the first. Why is a belief a limit?

TA

[Coco]

Maybe because if it becomes dogmatic because it can stop you from seeking further or being open to new truths ?
I guess that the idea is that human "truths" are mostly provisional. I think I agree with that.

(like the "Hermanos Azules" title BTW Joseph )

[Joseph]

Hi Coco

if it (...it... being your belief...whatever you believe) becomes dogmatic.. it can stop you from seeking further or being open to new truths ...
...human "truths" are mostly provisional.

I think you've distilled the essence of it.

Respect!
~Joseph

[Joseph]

I have an interest in bata as a cultural and artistic phenomena.
The religious aspects of which seem rather arcane for my particular outlook / belief / acculturation.
One aspect of the bata tradition, as manifested in Cuba, that is particularly impressive to me is the ability (through its human practitioners) to survive. It’s a true testament to the irrepressibility of life itself!

Belief in transition from intuitive knowledge to a magical technique.

Is that a some sort of a tenet on the path of the sacred batalero?

Reminder
Me = .00001 BKQ

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi Joseph,

One aspect of the bata tradition, as manifested in Cuba, that is particularly impressive to me is the ability (through its human practitioners) to survive. It’s a true testament to the irrepressibility of life itself!

That's true. It is a rather materialistic point of view, but definitely one aspect; although drummers usually earn more by giving one lesson to a foreigner than playing a toque. And then there are all the guys who hang with the hired group just to sit in. Sometimes they get a share from the group, sometimes not. You may say they want to learn in order to earn money themselves later on, but they are definitely crazy about the music, too. I mean, what else is there to do for those young cats?

Is that a some sort of a tenet on the path of the sacred batalero?

Sacred batalero? A batalero cannot be more sacred than any other being. No, it doesn't have anything to do with drumming, it isn't even taken from the religious vocabulary; this was just me. No explanation given.

Thomas

[Joseph]

Hi Thomas,

That's true. It is a rather materialistic point of view, but definitely one aspect.

I guess I should have been more specific, I meant survival up until the 30's, when it emerged from repression and secrecy...and thus became...exploitable.

Sacred batalero?

Poor choice of words....batalero on the path of sacred drumming...one who stands to inherit the fundamento.

Some developments are inevitable.

From The Latin American Folk Institute:
http://www.lafi.org/magazine/articles/batadrums.html
"Today, many people have heard the sounds of the batá drums and perhaps not known it–the batá are now being used in commercial recordings of popular music, not just folkloric recordings. These double-headed drums are heard frequently in CDs of Latin popular music, to a great extent in jazz and Latin jazz, and often in an introduction to or break in a salsa tune. A quick search of the excellent Descarga catalog (on-line at http://www.descarga.com) turns up more than 50 Latin CDs with batá; on them. One excellent folkloric CD is IIú Añá. Today, they are even used in other popular music, from Mickey Hart's Planet Drum group to Laurie Anderson's album Mister Heartbreak."


~Joseph
BKQ = .00002

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi Joseph.

Yes, this article was written by Mark Corrales, who maintained the BataDrums website for several years. The connected forum still exists, but with very little activity.

Let me still clarify one point. You mentioned repression and secrecy along each other in reference to bata drumming before 1936. That sounds as if all the bata drummers were waiting for the opportunity to reveal their art and mysteries to the public. I am sure it wasn't like that. Even today, the religion on the whole still implies a lot of secrecy and taboos; but anyone who becomes initiated knows about that. It becomes natural to deal with those restrictions. And a taboo that forbids to bring the drums out of the religious houses wasn't that painful, compared to many a taboo that you have to regard when you are initiated as olorisha (santero), which most (if not all) drummers were at that time. The drummers had enough bata work on ceremonies. There was no need to play them in public. Outside they were perhaps playing Rumba or Son. Some of them might have been Abakuá, another society with even more secrecy around it; so they were playing the Abakuá drums there. No suffering involved. On the contrary, it might have been more painful for some to reveal what shouldn't be revealed.

What leads to my next point: secrecy. Many of us tend to think that the secrecy around bata drumming and Anyá was caused by the persecution of Ocha practitioners in days gone by. That is certainly correct - partly. But even today not everything is revealed openly, and the opinions on what can, or cannot, be told, sung or played outside differ among the drummers as well as priests. I suspect that many of them seem to indulge in the sensation to know more than another person and deny him the desired information, religiously legitimated. That's only primitive, almost infantile.
But furthermore I believe that secrecy in Yoruba religion has a specific ethnic background that must be regarded and respected. In his book "Yoruba Medicine", Anthony Buckley explains how the traditional Yoruba idea of health is based on the concept of hidden and exposed areas/substances/colors. If too much of what should be hidden is exposed and vice versa, an organism either is or becomes ill. If we think of the religion and the religious community as a living organism, this idea is easily referable to the concept of secrecy. It makes sense to me, too, and I won't be the one who rushes forward in breaking any vow of secrecy, as far as I'm concerned.

Thomas