Mali, West Africa (Part Two)

Bamako

It has been a fantastic day. After breakfast we had a superb two-hour djembe lesson with Madou at the Palais de Culture just around the corner from our hostel. Alonso had met this women eating breakfast at The Sleeping Camel, Tina from Slovakia, who had come to study with Madou. We figured this guy must be something as Tina has come to Mali four times just to work with him. We got his number and completely butted into her lesson. We played outside among the big trees next to the Niger River. A perfect setting.

Click to read more ...

Quiet Listening

I have been experimenting with a new kind of listening over the last year.

For reasons partially, but not completely, clear to me I am finding that my ear has developed a kind of threshold. This threshold is not just volume oriented, it is also information oriented. Once I cross this threshold my ears shut down -- both internally and externally. Meaning that not only does my inner ear shut down and I cannot bear to listen anymore, but my physical ears don't want any more sound either. They kind of stuff themselves up.

Click to read more ...

Austin Powers & the Merciful Blending of Time

“Austin Powers” is a piece by Alex Machacek that he, Marco Minnemann and I are working up for the UKZ shows in Japan. The recorded version is on Alex’s recording “[sic]”.

This “three-piece suit and a poison pen” of a tune has some of the most challenging rhythms I have ever attempted. The musical worlds that I move comfortably in, all have four, or occasionally three, subdivisions to the beat. The bars could be composed of any numbers of beats - 5, 8, 9, 13, etc... - but each of those beats are broken up in to four small pulses.

Click to read more ...