Communique #2: The Arcitext Orcestra



I close my eyes and the Architext Orcestra playsa-rounda-me.  Sixty paces from the car to the stairs (played in six groups of ten beat rhythms, each ten beat made up of two five beat call and response phrases).  With each of these rhythms, play each Capital as one beat.  Lower case notes are in-betweeners...


(TkTTkDT)(DkDkTTT)


Thirteen steps up from the carpark to the hospital foyer

D T T -  D T T -  D Tk D D T

The Machines in the hospital room play a non-repeating polyrhythm, one machine plays the bass notes, another the high tones


D - T D -  - D T -  D


Outside the hospital the Autumnal sunshine is literally perfect, and my walk from the hospital is filled with little significances.  In the doorway where someone sleeps, four stones and two pieces of plastic arranged like a protective charm, a symbol.

I sit at a long outdoor table at a cafe on Hindley Street, there are six others seated at the table with me, but it's not always about the numbers.  Some of them are discussing their aged care patients, the challenges of Alzheimers, the routines at dinner time and how one patient always sends his nurse away after every mouthful, only to call her back, saying we're not done yet.

We're not done yet.




The Arcitext Orcestra plays all around me.  The beeping pedestrian crossing, the ebb and flow of customers in the cafe, families, business meetings, university students.  It's not just about arranging numbers.  The call and response of youth and age and even sleep always, the limping, stepping, skipping dance....

So, homework?

The patterns are all around you, all the time.  Listen for them, play them in your mind, play them on your drum if you have the time.  Between lectures, between meal times, at meal times with the kids...these musical games can underpin every mundane activity and make a song and dance out of ordinary life.

Drum Arabesque, the New Term.

Communique #1 – Improvisation and Practice

Of all the rhythms that we have learned together, Saiidi, Chiftatelli and HayAllah are the three I play the most when I am on my own. Each of them can be played in such an infinite variety of ways that I find I am never bored, or repeating myself. So what are your three 'home' rhythms? Do you have any? It is useful to think about the way that you practice, what are your routines (though you might not think of them as routines). Do you play when the kids are asleep or when they are awake? Do you play indoors, outdoors, in the park, in the car, at the family Easter lunch? Do you have a drum in the car and a drum in your room? Do you practice at all?

In a lot of ways, practice is superseded by play. Practice is made redundant by play, since every moment of contact with the drum is practising the art of being a drummer. So think about how you practice, when, where, and consider the first rhythm that comes out when you sit down to play. I find recording even short sections of unplanned improvisations to be a very useful resource for my own study. Often rhythms come out that I have never heard before, and listening to them over is exactly like having a lesson with a teacher. You are your own teacher. You draw inspiration from my discipline and my joy, but the drumming that you do is the result of your own practice.

I think of the word practice in the way that a lawyer practices law, or a doctor, medicine. We are in the practice of drumming, we draw from the same well, and it is a bottomless inner resource.

So today I offer you the last (most recent) notation for the Temple of my familiar song, and two videos of me practising this morning.

Temple of my familiar

(Third Draft, March 2018)

1. HayAllah (x8) Slow

2. Wahiida (A B A C x2) Steady

3. Hiiwa x3 (first two Doums of Hiiwa are last two Doums of Wahiida)

4. Fezzaanii (A B / A B/ A B B B) Quick, louder towards end.

5. HayAllah (x4) Quick

6. Wahiida (A B A C) x2 Quick

Break: DT_DT_DT_DDDTTT/DDDTTT/DT_DT_DT_DDDTTT/DDDTTT/DDDTTT

8. Fezzaanii (A B / A B / A B B B) Steady, louder towards end

9. Wahiida (A B A C) x2 Quick

10. Hiiwa (x3)

Break: DT_DT_DT_DDDTTT/DDDTTT/DT_DT_DT_DDDTTT/DDDTTT/DDDTTT

11. Fezzaanii (A B / A B / A B B B) Slow & funky

               A: kD-T--kD--kDkT- FUNKY VARIANT

               B: kD-T-T-T-D-T-T-TK

12. HayAllah (x8) Slow

Note: at number 6, at the transition from Wahiida to the Break, the the final cycle is played as shown, with the following D being the first D of the Break.

A : D_tktkt_tktkt_K_

B : D_tktkt_tktkt_D_

A : D_tktkt_tktkt_K_

C : D_tktkt_tktkD_D_

It will play like this.

A : D_tktkt_tktkt_K_

B : D_tktkt_tktkt_D_

A : D_tktkt_tktkt_K_

C : D_tktkt_tktkD_D_DT_DT_DT_DT_DDD_TTT_DDD_TTT

DT_DT_DT_DT_DDD_TTT_DDD_TTT_DDD_TTT_DDD_TTT

Temple of My Familiar (morning practice video)

Improvisation Chiftatelli

https://youtu.be/C-kG8p2AT6A