1/19 - Busy Already.

Today I had two classes and three ensembles. Aural Skills wasn't too big of a deal. My composition class sounds like it's going to be a hassle, but cool enough to stick with it. We had new people in Singers II, which was fun, and we did very little in 1:00 Percussion Group today.

But somehow, the class I thought would be least stressful is turning out to be most stressful.

At 3 I went to African Ensemble. The teacher is nice, cool, and has a thick accent like Sriji did, but African, so I'll have to get used to that. We learned a song for talking drums in about a half an hour, which was fun, and we got out early, but before we left he told us to come back at 6, which none of us were aware we were supposed to do.

We came back at 6 and learned that African Ensemble is playing a concert at the Dallas Art Museum on Friday night in front of a pretty huge crowd. I was told around 2000+ people, I don't know if I should believe that. So we got out all of the awesome drums and shakers and bells and learned three more tunes, this time with the veterans and the dancers, since my class is just beginners. We're playing Gota, Tokoe, and Kpanlogo as a big ensemble with dancers, and Dagbamba with talking drums and other larger drums.

Gota looks like this:

(notation is Bell, Shaker, Drum 1, Drum 2 if necessary)

B:  x   o o x x o o x   o o x x o o |
S:  x         x          x   x    x    x    |
D: x   o o x x o o x   o o x x o o |

X is low on bell, O is high. X is the low drum, O is the high.

Tokoe:

B:x   x   o   o   x     o    o      |
S: x   x   x   x   x     x    x      |
D:xx z z xx zz xx z z x x zz |
2: zz x x zz xx zz x x z z xx |

I couldn't really notate this clearly, but the two drums alternate playing full strokes. The z's are dead strokes, kinda like buzzes. And one drum is higher than the other, so it sounds like low low high high low low high high... it's pretty cool.

Kpanlogo:

b: x     x     x       x   x   |
2: x       o        x       o   |
S: x     x     x       x   x   |

I can't remember the drum parts. And yes, two bell parts. I like how they interlock. I would sing it to you, but I'm writing on a blog.

All of these start and stop and restart again with different calls, played by my teacher, Gideon. He gives a set call and we all know when to come in, gives another to stop, etc. He also solos over all of these beats, all the time, while dancers switch off between choreographed routines and freestylin' it.

If I can get a video of it on Friday, I'll put it up here. It's really a party.

I'm pretty excited for the concert, and really the rest of this week; only two classes tomorrow and a short day and a concert on Friday. Couldn't ask for much better than that.

M