I went through all the bembe parts and the conversations along with Eric today. It wasn't too difficult, but the handing gets pretty funky in some of the conversations. The tonal changes in the melodies are opening up whole new worlds! The way of playing Caja with left hand open tones, and right hand stick tones that create a double roll is new for me, but also very appealing.
The hard part is learning the songs. I decided to start with Babaluaye since they're my favorite,, but it's a really big bite to chew. I took just that section from the CD and used Sound Forge to cut and paste that clip into about 8 repetitions. It's definitely steepening the learning curve.
An example of how tough they would be "Akomado" It's "BabaluAye 2" in the book.
The first syllable "a" starts on the first double of the bell, "ko" starts right on the 3 in between the double and the fifth strike of bell. "Do" is on the four, then "a" of "asonana koma do youn go lo" is right after the one - not on it. Wicked!
Anyway,, I love the way the pages are laid out, and I'm learning so much from this book!