Tonight's rehearsal...

... is promising to be GREAT!

Why, you ask? Because PATTY IS BACK from Cambodia!!! Yes, she has been on a 3 week workshop over there to descend into the depths of her own mind and further improve her already excellent skills on the agogo, as well as incorporating elements of Khmer music like the Kong Vong Toch (Cambodian agogo) and the famous Krap (a pair of flat bamboo or hardwood sticks, not to be confused with popular Australian music).

I for one am looking forward to this new dimension that she will introduce tonight!

Caution: she will probably also offer some illegally imported Cambodian citrus fruit for sale! Be careful with these, they are worse than Amsterdam mushrooms!

class CANCELLED tonight 16 April

Sorry guys I've got a very sudden high fever.

That was fun!

Just a quick note to thank all of you who played yesterday in Brunswick street, that was a lot of fun! The bucket song was a "once off", we won't permanently introduce the bucket as part of our bateria ;-)

Well done to Byron and Martinho, it was their first gig!

Also well done to Gail for holding the shaker section all by herself!

As a heads up, I'm currently in the process of organising the following gigs:

• 29 May: Sunnybank High School
• 21 June: Fete de la Musique

Details for gig tonight

Not much more detail for tonight (Sunday 12 April) than I already wrote:

• Be there: 9:10pm
• First set: 9:30pm
• Second set: 10:30pm
• Dress code: Mangueira shirt, white pants (I'll bring more shirts in case people don't have one yet)
• Where: former church at corner of Malt & Brunswick streets in the Valley. Entrance is from Malt street

Instruments:

• Remko: Repinique
• Erin, Jason, Denis: Caixa
• Gail: Ganza
• Claire, Maria, Martinho: Tamborim
• Ereni, Angus: first Surdo
• Melanie, Byron: second Surdo
• Brian, Will: 3rd surdo

See you there!

Dan Bau ( Monochord instrument )

Remko, this is how it should really sound like , traditionally. Ignore the keyboard in the background.

Brazilian Internet Radio

Have a listen to this free Brazilian internet radio from Salvador, Bahia:" Radio Cana Brava "

http://www.live365.com/stations/307181

An old fashion arrangement where you can hear all the acoustic instrument clearly. . . . . As long as you don't mind occasional sponsoring messages from the C.I.A . But the music is good though, honest !

Brian is starting Dan Bau classes!

For all that are interested in learning to play the Dan Bau, please contact Brian. This is what you might learn:

Easter gig!

Yes, it's time for a gig again! It has been a while so I'm looking forward to this one. It's a pretty interesting 21st birthday, Neo Tribal party, with a very artistic/eclectic audience apparently. Let's see! We'll do two sets, a performance and then later another one with some intense audience participation.

• When: Easter Sunday evening 12 April, approx. 9.15pm
• Where: former church at corner of Malt & Brunswick streets in the Valley
• Costumes: Mangueira shirts

I realise this is Easter, however this also means you've got the day off the following day!

Please let me know by email if you can make it!

Thanks

Remko

Class CANCELLED tonight 2 April

Sorry all, I'm not feeling well and will have to cancel the class tonight. I'll also send out an email but unfortunately I think some people might get this message too late, for which I apologise.

Announcing: new costumes!

All,

I'm proud to announce a cooperation with a swim wear company for our new costumes. Following up on frequent requests from some of the people that have booked us, we will be much more in-line with the spirit of Brazil, showing a bit more flesh, while still maintaining the central theme of pink & green. See the picture!

For the avoidance of doubt, the male members of our group do not have to wear the top.

The swimsuits will be made available in different sizes. Today, I received a sample for myself, so I invite you for a 'cat-walk' session at my deck, tonight Wednesday April 1st, at my place.

See you then
Remko

New South American Sambistas

Remko, there are more South American players coming to our school than ever before and they are returning for more too !

You must be doing something right ! ? !

Has our average attendance increased or am I hallucinating ?

New class structure

Draft for comments

OK, based on the valuable feedback in the last few weeks I have drafted a new structure for rehearsals. Note this is a draft for your comments only at this stage, it will not start until a few weeks from now.

Advanced group
Key to the new structure is the introduction of an 'advanced' group. The members of this group will be nominated by myself, based on the following criteria:

• Skill level, including ability to learn new things quickly
• Commitment, in particular ability to attend classes very regularly

Please note the amount of time someone has been with the samba school doesn't automatically qualify for membership of the advanced group. Nor is this group just for 'my favourite members', whatever that might be. Please leave any politics out of this.

I don't intend to limit the number of people in the advanced group, and in fact I encourage everyone to practice, learn, and work hard to one day, sooner or later, become part of this group too. To help with this, I am developing a skills matrix to help people progress and to learn to play instruments in a more structured way. Coming soon to a Samba School near you...

Songs
To introduce some much needed variety, we will be playing songs, as soon as we've sorted out the PA. We'll play songs both in the common and advanced group, although the advanced group will have more complex arrangements. Besides songs we will continue to do plain batucada, so just percussion, again the breaks in the advanced group will be more complex. Also, I might try new things with the advanced group first, and later use that group to teach the same thing in the common group, as it will be easier to understand something new if you can hear what the result should be.

Performances
I still want to give everyone the opportunity to perform as often as possible. I believe most performances we do will still be with the whole group. However for some performances, and it really depends on the circumstances, we'll also have the 'advanced' group doing some features. I think for these gigs we'll start with the smaller advanced group, then get the full bateria on stage at a later moment for extra impact. And yes, for some gigs I might just be able to invite the advanced group, depending on the circumstances.

Class/rehearsal structure

• The first part will be used to set up and to play (new) songs in a more informal setting, with smaller instruments often used in pagode, as it's easier for everyone to get used to a new song with only a few instruments than with the full bateria. Note I still like to keep this central, so please keep any other noise to a minimum. Everyone is welcome for this part. I will not be able to teach any instrumental skills in this part of the night, as I'll be playing cavaquinho most of the time.
• The second part will be technique training, where people can practice and learn to play an instrument or instruments as well as playing together. Everyone is welcome for this part, and advanced members can learn new instruments, practice, have fun, and help out others.
• The third part will be dedicated training for the 'advanced' group, with more complex rhythms, breaks and arrangements. This part is only open for the 'advanced' group, and it is expected that the advanced members attend this session pretty much weekly. I do encourage everyone else in the Samba School to stick around and listen though, as you'll also be able to learn a lot from listening.

The timetable will be as follows (times are approximate):

• 7.00pm – 7.30pm: Setting up, pagode, new songs, welcome
• 7.30pm – 8.25pm: Technique training (common group)
• 8.25pm – 8.40pm: Break
• 8.40pm – 9.30pm: Advanced training (advanced group)

Advanced members can skip the first parts if they want, although they are very much encouraged to attend the whole night to learn new instruments, help the common class and have a good time.

Discipline
A few members have commented that there should be more discipline during the classes, and I fully agree:

• Be on time as much as you can
• Be there as often as you can, in particular advanced members for the advanced training
• Be quiet when I'm explaining something
• Be willing to learn, allow me to teach you, and don't get offended if I try to explain something to you and you don't get it straight away
• Respect each other, and maintain a positive attitude (believe it or not but I often get complaints about other members 'whinging')

(I could have started each of the above with the word 'please', but I'm Dutch ;-)

I realise this is all quite a bit of information to take in, and that it will be lost in the depths of the Blog fairly soon. I therefore will also introduce the 'Primavera handbook', which will contain the above information plus other useful stuff. This will be given to all current and new members.

I hope this structure will not only improve the skills in the samba school, but also increase the fun and achievement. After all, if we all progress we can be more proud on what we have achieved! And remember, the samba school can only be what you make of it!

I look forward to your constructive feedback. As always, please keep it short and sharp. I have also included a little poll to the right of this page.

Thank you
Remko

Morena Tropicana

OK Guys, you all seem to like the song "Morena Tropicana" so the lyrics and cavaquinho chords are now up on the members-only site on Brisamba.com in the "songs and arrangements" section.

I hope you all remember your password; user name is firstname.lastname. And... there is a 'forgot your password' link as well...

We'll start practicing this song this Thursday! As preparation, listen to the video in the post below, and have a look at the lyrics. Have fun!

Morena Tropicana and País Tropical

The way forward with the Samba School

OK, let's try to keep this short & sharp: I feel we need to change the format of the classes a bit to keep it interesting for both beginners and advanced people, and for me as well. I haven't decided yet on this and would be really interested in your (constructive!) feedback.

What I'm considering:

• Making sure there's something new pretty much every night. That way people will keep coming else they'll miss out. Of course that also works the other way - if people don't come then they're holding up progress for the whole group (as is happening now a bit too) so that will need to be managed too.
• Songs, songs, songs. This would be a great way of adding much needed variety. I loved making the arrangements last year, that was a highlight in the 5 years of Primavera. Songs make it much more complex (set up PA, cavaco player, tamborim section, singers), but I feel it's worth it. I definitely can't do this all alone so I will need your help/ideas.
• Maybe have a lesson schedule, published on the blog, with info on what we do each night. Also, maybe dedicated classes (every 4, maybe 6 weeks) for beginners so that I can go through the basics with them. Posting a schedule on the blog hopefully will encourage more people to have a look at it.
  
• Having an 'advanced' group for certain songs/rhythms. That way the people with 'less talent' (not sure how to put this) won't hold up the more 'advanced' people. Very difficult this one.
• We experimented the last couple of weeks with pagode the first 30 minutes. Personally I am not convinced about this yet but appreciate any feedback.
• The money side of things. I'm considering making payment for classes optional, as in it's expected people that can afford the $8 they pay but if you can't then you don't have to. This of course will only work if there's enough paying people. I don't want people to stay away because they really can't afford it.
• Any other ideas? Please comment on this post. Keep it short & sharp & positive ("Remko, I'm bored" is definitely not encouraging me to think constructively).

Your feedback is very much appreciated. For what it's worth, I have to admit there's a chance that I'll quit with all this if we can't keep it interesting and positive enough... so please make the effort to think and comment about this.

If you want to post comments privately or if you again have lost your password don't hesitate to email me!

Yours in Samba,

Remko

Thanks Angus & Renata!

Just a quick message to Angus & Renata, thank you very much for organising a great party! I had a fantastic time, great food, and the caipirinhas and the cachaca, well, were just amazing. I also really enjoyed the little pagode and then the playing on the street was fun as well. Funny how again we saved the day for RioRhytmics, I didn't quite expect that we would be leading but hey it's more fun for us that way anyway!

Thanks very much!

Remko

Carnaval West end: pictures

Try the link below for the rest of the pictures. Let me know if you can't get through:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bdi12177/CarnavalWestEnd200902#

Carnaval, West End: . . . .the parade

Mike sums up people's feeling !

Boundary Street Parade

Rio Rhythmics is organizing a street parade this Saturday night, on Boundary Street, West End, to coincide with carnival in Brazil. I have been talking to Tarcisio about participating. For anyone who is interested, he could do with a few extra surdos, shakers, and tamborines, and a snare or two. If there is extra people, a few agogos. Dress is white. We are meeting at the back door of Rio Rythmics at 9pm.
For those who want a bit more action, come to my place at 5pm for a Brazilian BBQ, pagode, and carnival on TV (i have TV Globo, so it is live, but on Saturday, it will only be carnival from Sao Paulo). My house is just down the road from Boundary Street, so maybe at 8.30 we do our own little, much tighter, better looking and generally higher quality, parade while we walk down to Rio Rythmics. My office is conveniently next door to Rio Rhyhmics so we can leave instruments there and party on after if required.
Please let me know if you can make it to either the street parade or bbq or both. I will give address and so on Thursday.
Angus

Carnival West End

Sambistas, As you may be aware, carnival in Brasil starts next saturday. Rio Rythmics is having a street parade including bataria and dancers in boundary street, west end on Saturday night (21th) around 8.30pm. I have spoken with Tarcisio from Rio Rythmics and he is happy for members on GRES Unidos da Primaerva (us) to join in. He will let me know which instruments they have, and what they need. At this stage it looks like they need shakers, surdos, and snares, however I will confirm.
So preliminary plan is meet at 4pm at my house for a brasilian bbq (churrasco), carnaval on the tv (or a video if its not live), a bit a pagode, a few caparihas for those not driving, some dancing, and maybe some costumes for thise drinking a few caparihnas. Anyway, details to follow.
Angus

Note from Remko: note this in on the 21th, not today!