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Mar. 15th, 2005 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonThis morning when I got up I dragged my sorry tired carcass to the living room and did the 15 minute version of Rachel Brice's yoga and isolation drills, despite creaking joints and overall protest. When I was done, I felt longer, lighter and infinitely more awake. Sun salutations make you feel good in the morning, who'da thunk it? I can't get my palms flat on the floor when bent at the hips yet, but I'm already closer than I was, so I'm sure I'll get there. And for the first time since I got this DVD, I was able to hold the locust pose for as long as Ms. Brice. Yay for progress in flexibility!
Last night in Amira Jamal's class we did more work on drum solos. It was very productive. One exercise we did was to do a shimmy-less drum solo, to serve as a reminder of all the things you can do that aren't shimmying during a drum solo. That's something I'll have to do at home once in a while. In the second half of the class, we took turns doing individual solos for critiquing and feedback. Amira Jamal chose the music pretty much at random. I started my piece, and quickly realized that I had no idea what the music was doing. So I stopped and admitted that I had no idea what the music was doing. Once I wouldn't have been able to do that; I'm glad I am more comfortable at admitting that I don't know what I'm doing. I think the difference is that now I have faith that I'll get it once it's explained to me, that not knowing something isn't the same as being bad at it. Anyway, Amira Jamal wasn't totally sure what rhythm it was either, but we listened to a few more bars and I was able to grab onto the basic pattern, which sounded rather like a samba, oddly enough. I did some research when I got home and it turns out it was a karatchi, which makes sense as that rhythm is an Arabicized version of a Latin American rhythm made popular in Lebanon in the 1960s (or at least so Nourhan Sharif's Lebanese rhythms cd tells me). Finding out it was Lebanese made me happy, because while doing the solo, I found myself doing a lot of those Lebanese-style shoulder shimmies with big front-back weight shifts. Yay for progress in intuitively understanding Arabic music!
Tonight I don't have Seyyide's class, as she is out of town. I'm still a little under the weather, so I don't mind taking things a little easy this week. Thursday night I have to get started on my next performance pieces though: Taht il-Shubbak for the Morocco hafli (GULP! Performing in front of Morocco!!!) and a Macedonian goth-techno-industrial band's cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart, complete with ouds and bagpipes, for the next time I perform at the Kabarett. I am not making that up. It rocks my world.
Last night in Amira Jamal's class we did more work on drum solos. It was very productive. One exercise we did was to do a shimmy-less drum solo, to serve as a reminder of all the things you can do that aren't shimmying during a drum solo. That's something I'll have to do at home once in a while. In the second half of the class, we took turns doing individual solos for critiquing and feedback. Amira Jamal chose the music pretty much at random. I started my piece, and quickly realized that I had no idea what the music was doing. So I stopped and admitted that I had no idea what the music was doing. Once I wouldn't have been able to do that; I'm glad I am more comfortable at admitting that I don't know what I'm doing. I think the difference is that now I have faith that I'll get it once it's explained to me, that not knowing something isn't the same as being bad at it. Anyway, Amira Jamal wasn't totally sure what rhythm it was either, but we listened to a few more bars and I was able to grab onto the basic pattern, which sounded rather like a samba, oddly enough. I did some research when I got home and it turns out it was a karatchi, which makes sense as that rhythm is an Arabicized version of a Latin American rhythm made popular in Lebanon in the 1960s (or at least so Nourhan Sharif's Lebanese rhythms cd tells me). Finding out it was Lebanese made me happy, because while doing the solo, I found myself doing a lot of those Lebanese-style shoulder shimmies with big front-back weight shifts. Yay for progress in intuitively understanding Arabic music!
Tonight I don't have Seyyide's class, as she is out of town. I'm still a little under the weather, so I don't mind taking things a little easy this week. Thursday night I have to get started on my next performance pieces though: Taht il-Shubbak for the Morocco hafli (GULP! Performing in front of Morocco!!!) and a Macedonian goth-techno-industrial band's cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart, complete with ouds and bagpipes, for the next time I perform at the Kabarett. I am not making that up. It rocks my world.
