Samba World Percussion

Darren and myself are heading up to Ziggy's tomorrow morning.

http://www.sambaworldpercussion.com/index.html

If anyone wants anything please let us know and we can pick it up for you while we are there.

Cheers

Warren

Outstanding!

To everyone who played tamborim last night:

You all sounded terrific!

I felt like a proud Mama listening to all of you do such an amazing job at the schmeckedy-schmecking.

Keep up the good work!

No rehearsal next week, but....

I will be in Melbourne next week so will have to cancel next week's class (1 April), sorry about that. The Polish Club will be busy with Easter preparations so they might have cancelled us anyway.

However, tonight is a special night, as it's Eric's last time before he moves to the US. Let's have a few beers and a very special pagode, and sing lots of songs with the bateria.

Hope to see you tonight!

Foam

I bought a big box to carry all snares. To protect them, I'll need some foam, about 2-4 cm thick.
Does anyone have some spare foam around?

ABRASSO

Renata has asked me to tell everyone, the new Brasilian Association is holding an official launch cocktail party on Saturday, March 27, from 5pm to 8pm at the Sebel, corner of Charlotte and Ann Street. There will be music, capoeira etc. Forms attached.

Tribal?

OK you have to watch this one till the end. Hermeto Pascoal, from Brazil. Next rehearsal will be in my pool.

Parking at the Polish Club

Over the past few weeks, a number of times the second car park at the Polish Club was closed, causing all kind of issues. My understanding is that this is not intentional, and that the system has been malfunctioning.

I have written a letter to the president of the Polish Club asking for their help in resolving this urgently, in the meantime please could I ask you for your patience?

Staff at the Polish Club have access to a remote control, so they can open the barrier if necessary. It is always possible to drive out as this is sensor driven. So, if you are stuck for parking when you arrive, can I suggest you just let them know to open the gate? I know this is inconvenient, and hope this situation will be resolved asap. Thanks!

Thanks for today!

Thank you everyone for today, I think we did pretty well, especially given we didn't have any snare players. I'm not sure about you, but I was absolutely exhausted after all that, pretty much full on from 2pm till past 6pm.

I didn't know we were going to be in such a small area, I had understood we would have all the area between the stands and the end of the field. Hope it didn't feel to claustrophobic for you. And the rain in the second half only got us a little bit wet, thanks for persisting and continuing to play.

I loved the fantastic feedback from the audience, very positive! The radio calls were sometimes hard to follow, but at the end it took the burden away from me to decide when (not) to play.

I'll have a debrief with the event organisers later this week, I'll let you know the outcome. In the meantime, please let me know any comments you have.

Thanks very much again!

Details for Sunday's gig @ SunCorp

• What to wear: white pants. We will get Reds t-shirts
• Be there: 2.25pm sharp at the Castlemain Street boomgate. It is essential you are on time, as this is when we hand out the necessary wristbands etc.
• Free tickets: email me asap if you'd like to bring a guest
• What we'll do: 3-4pm we'll play at the South plaza (with breaks). 4.30pm till 6pm we'll play during the game. We probably switch sides after half-time.
• Parking - Reds doesn't have a deal with Inform, like Roar, so unfortunately no parking possible.

Instruments

Remko - Repinique

Josh - Repinique

Angus - 1st surdo

Darren - 1st surdo

Elwin - 2nd surdo

Melanie - 2nd surdo

Fernando - 3rd surdo

Warren - 3rd surdo

Brian - 3rd surdo

Pri - tamborim

Maria - tamborim

Eric - tamborim

Miki - Ganza

Gail - Ganza

Lynne - Ganza

Patty - Ganza

After football .... there's rugby!

Following our success with Brisbane Roar, we have been approached by the Reds (Rugby Union) to support them this Sunday afternoon 14 March, at SunCorp stadium! 

It's going to be different from the Roar, and we won't play in the stands but on the field. It's an experiment that I'm keen to try out, and I hope so are you! This is being organised by an event bureau so I'm very keen to show off what we can do!

We would need to be there around 2.30pm. We'd play before and during the game, which finishes at 6pm.

Please let me know ASAP if you're interested by email! 

A good session

Some feedback here: I thought there was a lot to like about last night's practice. I liked learning the beats around the table. I liked that we did 6/8. It's one of my favourite rhythms anyway, but also it's good to have a change from straight samba. I liked that there were opportunities to stop and really work over a section slowly when there was a glitch. That's how we're going to improve our technique.

Generally, I thought we had a good balance of playing and learning. A good night!

Chekere playing

Hi sambistas,
Thought some might appreciate the chekere playing on the jazz guitarist Grant Green's album "The Latin Bit". There is a dedicated chekere player on 6 of the 9 tracks (Carvin Masseaux).

Here is the first track, Mambo Inn. At about 0:50 the chekere holds down this fast triplet roll for the majority of the rest of tune! The dude must have pretty sore wrists.




I doubt he could do it while doing the Brisamba chekere dance though.