Very quick here…

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PHOTOS BELOW ARE FOR THIS POST! :)

Hola!

Very quick here, cos have gone beyond my internet allowance for this month!!!

Well, I made a few new friend, from this blog actually! (wow), and…. we hung out today and played timbales. He’s a beginner too, but more about that tomorrow, or Sunday. We jammed together, I taught him what I knew AND then we went to see a salsa band in a park, AND my timbale teacher plays in this band AND they invited me up to join them!!!

BEST FEELING EVER!!!

I feel confident to play in a band!! Of course I have a long way to go, I still need to learn heaps, BUT I kept my time and rhythm and didn’t stuff up once!!! :) Well, not that anyone could tell. I think I went faster than the band for 1 beat but then came back! The band were very supportive too! Big band, maybe 10 or more members? Will count tomorrow! :)

BEST NIGHT EVER! :)

(Yes, have been practising my timbales and will continue to do so!!).

Welcome to 2012!!!

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So, it’s already 2012!!! Welcome!!! :)

Welcome to my blog also, if it’s your first time here!

It’s been a whole 5 months since my last post! So much for keeping regular track of my timbale playing progress! Also, I had set myself a goal, as noted in my “About Me” section, to play in a salsa band by the end of the year! Well, that didn’t happen, and here I am, again, in January 2012, with the SAME goal!!! This time, my goal is to play in a live salsa band by August!! That’s 7 months away! What do I have to do differently this time to actually achieve my goal??

I’ve been reading a book of my mum’s called something like, Confidence for Dummies. It’s a great book and talks about the SMART method of setting goals. Let me see if I can google something about it…

http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/goal-setting-tutorials/smart-goal-setting

also,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

I have quite a few videos to post up from the past 5 months… will do those during the week! Also, I now have a new teacher! One who lives in my city!! Someone who has played in some really amazing latin bands! They’re going well! I am still practising, though of course I would like to practice more!

Practice time this week has been something like:

  • Last Monday: 1 hour
  • Tues: 22 mins
  • Weds: 1 hour
  • Thurs: 0
  • Fri: 40 mins
  • Sat: 0
  • Sunday: 1 hour
  • Today: 10 mins

So, it’s still my goal to practice every day, and for an hour too!

Anyway, time to keep working, and I’ll be back here again! :)

Videos from past months will be uploaded soon, plus will film some recent ones! :)

Thanks for reading!

En clave,

Paulina.

 

 

 

First Week of “Challenge”

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So, this is my first week of my little 30 day Timbale Practice Challenge. The idea was to practice a minimum of 30 minutes each day. My timbale teacher told me that it’s not that the hours or minutes that count, but the quality of the practice, and that even 10 minutes of good practice was good. I agree and disagree, so with his comment in mind, I decided instead to aim to at least spend some time practicing each day.

So, this week so far:

Tuesday: 30 minutes
Wednesday: 5 mins
Thursday: 18 minutes
Friday: 45 minutes
Saturday: 15 minutes
Sunday: 15 minutes

I still believe an hour of practice is ideal… but… I’ll keep aiming to practice every day and realistically aiming for 15 – 30 minutes each day.

This week I was fortunate to attend a drum clinic by John Morrison, brother of James Morrison. This was great! I expected John to play more drums than he did, but out of 2 hours he talked about 90% of the time and played the drums about 10% of the time.

It was so beneficial. I learnt a lot from what he was saying, talking about different teaching methods, perserverance, music “life” and more I can’t even remember. When he first got onto the drumkit he didn’t hammer on them but just got a feel for them. Was amazing.

But the best thing from the clinic, for some reason, when I left and got into my car, my usual salsa started blaring from the CD player. AND…… it was one of those moments where I light when on in my head, for I could actually HEAR the percussion!!! I could hear the drums and I could all that was going on!!! It was like after attending John’s drum clinic, my ears had been sharpened up, like a pencil gets sharpened and becomes so much better to write with. My ears became better at LISTENING!!

I only hope to attend more drum clinics/workshops in the future and of course to increase my listening skills!!!

Something to LISTEN to…. and watch…

Practice today.

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Today’s practice…..

I’ve been told by previous teachers and percussionist friends to LISTEN to the music. Not sing along to it, but actually LISTEN to the music and of course, especially LISTEN to what’s going on with the percussion.

Another goal of mine: to be able to listen to the music better and especially to be able to hear what’s going on percussion-wise.

Paulina.