Xmas holidays!!!

Hi all, Xmas is only one month away and I thought I help you with your plans by announcing the samba school rehearsal dates early!

• Last rehearsal of 2010 will be Thursday 9 December. As always I'll try to make the last rehearsal of the year a bit special!
• First rehearsal of 2011 will be Thursday 13 January

Now, there will still be a few Roar gigs during this time:

• 26 December 6.15pm Roar vs Gold Coast (traditional local Boxing Day derby!)
• 7 January 7.30pm Roar vs Perth (again!)

Please let me know asap if you'd like to play any of these gigs!

CANCELLED - this Thursday's class (25/11/10)

Even though our gig on Wednesday has been cancelled, I have decided to cancel Thursday's class anyway as I feel that there won't be a lot of people going anyway given changes in diaries this week. Sorry about that, and see you next week!

CANCELLED - Roar vs Perth performance

All, Roar has decided to cancel our performance this Wednesday for the Roar vs Perth game, as they fear it will clash with another (one off) activity they have planned.

If anyone still want to go to the game (without drums) please contact me.

I am undecided whether we'll have a class on Thursday or not - probably not as I think people have already got their mind set that we won't have a class then!

Mangueira

Thanks Remko for making us play Mangueira - it's a motivating caixa pattern and when we master it I'm sure the outcome will be AWESOME.

I found two interesting samba blogs showing patterns and associated fingering for caixa - I noticed that the accents are not exactly the same for Mangueira, and now I don't remember which one you made us play !

(r right, l left, z buzz, caps accents)

I remembered this

RlRR lRRl RlRR lzzl

Now I see this

RRlR lRRl RlRR lzzl

or this

RRlR lRRl RRlR lzzl

http://sambagypsy.blogspot.com/2008/11/mangueiras-new-sticking.html

http://riostories.blogspot.com/2007/03/monoblocos-2007-caixa-patterns.html

(this one has lots of samba patterns, pretty cool)

(Yes, non caixa players, you can play this : zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

What rain?

I don't know what it is with you lot, but every time there is even a hint of rain in the air, half of you don't turn up to rehearsal!

Can I just assure everyone that the Polish Club has a pretty good roof, and car parking is provided within 10 second walking distance from the entrance. There is nice coffee, even hot chocolate if you really want to.

And, as they say in Brazil, we're not made of sugar!

So, I'm looking forward to seeing you all tonight!

This Saturday - Roar vs North QLD Fury

This Saturday night, the Roar (now comfortably top of the ladder) plays North Queensland Fury (trailing at the very uncomfortable bottom end of the ladder)! So it's going to be an interesting  game with hopefully quite a few goals to celebrate!


Update - we'll also play in a corporate box as part of Roar's charity for breast cancer day. Therefore we need to be there a bit earlier - 7.15pm. Please don't be late as we'll have to play 7.35pm already!

Of course we need to be there to provide some loud support, so please let me know if you can play this Saturday! The game starts at 8.15pm, we'd need to be there 7.15pm. Parking provided as always.

We'll also play at the South plaza again! Please let me know if you'd like to play!


Players:


Remko - Repinique
Brian - 2nd Surdo
Paul Dennis 3rd surdo
Patty - Shaker
Angus - 3rd Surdo
Elwin - 1st Surdo
Jason - Caixa
Gail - 3rd surdo

Maracatu

Further to Paul's post below, just a few notes.

When a few of us were in Rio in 2006, we did a Maracatu workshop and we also saw a Maracatu performance, which was very impressive. Since then, we have done some attempts to imitate some maracatu rhythms during some of our own samba school rehearsals. Whilst this was a lot of fun, this never really got off the ground, and certainly wasn't up to standard for public performance.

Paul Dennis joined the samba school a few weeks ago. He has previously been playing Maracatu when he lived in Berlin, and would love to continue playing now that he lives here in Brisbane. We agreed to try to incorporate Maracatu in the repertoire of the Samba School, and Paul has kindly agreed to help teach everyone.

So, regarding his request below, I fully support the purchase of a few alfaias, but before we go too far down that track, I like to get some feedback from the samba school. So please vote in the poll to the right of this page, and let us know if you like to incorporate Maracatu into the samba school.

If the majority supports this, I will advertise in advance which classes will be dedicated to Maracatu. I will also consider purchasing a couple of alfaias for the samba school.

Comments very welcome!

ALFAIA $455 with goat skin heads! v. nice

Hi everyone

I have been in contact with www.sambaworldpercussion.com they have five 20" alfaia's from Brazil. These are the large drums used in Maracatu, coco, afoxe and other rhythms from Pernambuco. At the moment they are $359 and I am definatley going to buy one. I'm also getting two 20" goat skin heads. These will cost $48 each. So the total price is $455.

If anyone else wants to buy alfaia this is a good opportunity. They are very good quality, the price is good, they are extremely rare in Australia and the more we buy we can get them cheaper still. Is anyone else interested?

Cheers Paul

High Energy Maracatu

A Nação do Maracatu Estrela Brilhante from Recife performing at the Television Tower in Brasília 2005. Shekere 03:39 .

Brazilian BBQ at the Joynt. Sunday the 14th.

If anyone is interested there's a Brazilian BBQ at the Joynt this Sunday.
Forro, pagode and samba for those inclined also.

http://events.myspace.com/Event/7564112/Saideira-Brazilian-BBQ--the-Joynt

Roar vs Adelaide - this Saturday

This Saturday night, the Roar (now number 2 on the ladder) plays Adelaide (number one)! So it's going to be a big game where they battle it out for the top of the table.

Of course we need to be there to provide some loud support, so please let me know if you can play this Saturday! The game starts at 8.15pm, we'd need to be there 7.15pm. Parking provided as always.

Players:
Remko - Repinique
Paul D - 3rd Surdo
Gail - 3rd Surdo
Denis - Caixa
Siobhann - 1st Surdo
Leisa - 1st Surdo
Miki - Ganza
Patty - Agogo / Ganza
Brian - 2nd Surdo

Please be there 7.15pm. This time we'll play at the South plaza too!