by Héctor » Tue Mar 29, 2005 1:23 pm
Monday 28th March 2005
It's Easter-Monday, a bankholiday in this wherabouts, and a deep feeling of lethargy hangs in the air. It is not only the waether, which no doubt, contributes to it, it is as if we were all enormously fat and heavy, everything seems to happen in slowmotion. It cannot be the usual easter-feast, we did skip it this year, the christmas one had been bad enough. Is it our budies adjusting to the summer-time we have been having since saturday night? The only person with his normal speed is my two-and-a-half year old son, who keeps running away in the park, not caring a bit about what/who he leaves behind or what/who might be ahead of him. He just runs off, as fast as a Thomson gazelle, without stopping once to even have a look and see whether his elephant-father is running after him, completly out of breath, with his tounge hanging miles long out of his mouth. That's it!!! I've had enough!!! When I finally get hold of him I drag him home, don't care about him crying and all the other "shocked" parents looking at me as if I was a member of the Spanish inquisition. Once home I "hand him over" to my wife who has been enjoying a short siesta, grab the car keys and escape to the studio. On days like these there is only one thing that can possibly help: my congas! But, will I "wake up"? How are my arms going to shake off this lethargy and be fast and strong enough to get some clear sounds out of those animal skins? Oh yeah! Those skins! They never let me down till now. They have taken all my frustrations, aggressions, disillusions, and given me so often fluidity, joy and oneness in return.
It dosen't take me long to get there, about 10 minutes by car. The room is cold, I put the heating on and slowly take my LP Classic quinto out of his bag. I have three more congas and one tumba but today it's a quinto day. Just the quinto to start with. I slowly turn the tuning screws, one by one, turn by turn, testing the pitch in between until I get that particular sound I like so much, impossible to describe it with words. I place two LP rubber conga feet underneath, put an elastic bicycle cord around my waist to hold the drum in place so that I can relax my legs, and start with my favorite warming up ride:
bbttbbttbbttbbttbbttbtbtbtbtbbttbbttbbttbbttbtbtbtbt...
l r lr lr lr l r lr lr lr lr l r ll l l l l ll rl r lr l rl rl rl rl rl rr rr rr rr
Slowly I fall into the usual trance-like state of mind and my arms and wrists, although still less efficient than usual, manage to shake off some of the lethargy and surprise me with some decent fluidity and strokes. I take out the tumba, tune it up and try a basic songo pattern:
b t s b b s O O and so on...
l l r l r l r r
and than my favorite variation:
b t s b b s OO / b o b t o s O o
l l r l r l r r l r l l r l r l
and it works! ok, less fluid than usualy, I need more concetration and get this or that stroke wrong occasionally, but my frustration is gone! I'm clean! And I love my son and my wife! What a great world all of a sudden this one is!
Héctor
Edited By Héctor on 1112180976
De Madrid al cielo!