Saturday 18 October 2014

Eureka

No time for railway today because going away overnight to see Andy Fairweather Low.

I've remembered that some time ago I made a canopy out of sheets of newspaper reinforced with wallpaper paste for my Gare du Nord.



It was just an experiment.

Another important task waiting to be done.

*********************************************************************************
Currently listening to:


A whole load of youTube videos on Samba swing.

eg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_D11j0qCww



There seem to be Samba drumming classes all over the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last night's dinner:

Out at friends and forgot to take photograph but it was excellent.


RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Currently reading:


DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Drumming practice update:

The stand-in or, if you like, supply leader at out Saturday morning Samba class  imparted a key item of knowledge regarding ghost notes - by the way, they're the quiet notes in between the accented strokes in a pattern.

The insight:

Accents are down-strokes but ghost notes are up-strokes.

At first this sounded like nonsense; a stroke has to be downwards otherwise instead  of meeting the skin of the drum, it would meet the ceiling.

But what the  term "up-stroke" actually means is that the stick starts off very near the surface of the skin; then it flicks the skin and then immediately travels upwards. Having travelled upwards, the stick is then ready to come crashing down for the "down-stroke" of the accent.

Once down, the stick is ready once more to execute the flick of the quieter "up-stroke" ie the ghost note.


This sequence intrinsically links the ghost notes with the accents so that they are dependent on each other. The ghost note goes up ready for the stick to come down hard for the accent, and having travelled downwards the stick is now ready to perform the quieter ghost note, once again then travelling upwards ready for the accent and so on.

And the advantage of this dependent cycle is - SPEED!!!


No comments:

Post a Comment