Miami drums

This next Friday 28th of August Bagua Drum circle:
This a young drum circle that has been growing steadily through out the months. Nice garden behind the store. If weather is bad, drum circle transforms into a more intimate indoor music jam.
4736 NE 2nd Ave – Miami, FL – 305-757-9857 . Starts around 8 PM. Open percussion drum circle in the backyard garden. Parking on the street.

Eric Bli Bli Gore took over Matthew’s class, West african drum instruction. I’m not sure if class’s price is the same. Every Saturday morning at 11 @ 5533 La Gorce Dr. Miami Beach, FL

News from Clint from Paralounge:
Paralounge Drum Gathering – October 16-18, 2009 – At the Cerveny Conference Center in Live Oak Florida on HWY 90.
Clint’s comments sound really exciting:
“Cerveny Conference Center is a beautiful facility on over 530 acres of pristine Florida woodlands. The facility is owned by the Episcapol Church but is not a religious institution. The facility is open to open to any responsible event. White Lake is at the center of the property and can be seen from the Conference area. It has been a lot larger but has suffered a bit from recent drought. It is still a large lake, but when the water comes back, it’s a really big lake.”
This sounds like an ideal place for Paralounge. $55.00 per person / Children 3 – 12 are $15.00
The price includes primitive camping October 16,17 2009. The price also includes all workshops and performances. Meals are separate.

Next Monday 31st Saibou Ba is teaching at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center
on Saturday May 23, 2009 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm 6161 NW 22 Ave Miami, FL 33142 – 305-721-8934.

And like always Broward drum circle this Saturday….

I’ve always wonder about rhythm and music ownership. A drummer, a performer a musician might perform for the crowd, but this is ultimately a mistake. An artist at any level and age should perform for himself regardless of what other people say. Sure, some people are crowd pleasers, but that doesn’t change the fact about why there’s an intention for music or art from the artist in the first place.
The rhythm ownership then is subject to what type of property law? Since we are born, everything carries a name tag on the side, the hospital you were deliver, the bed where your mother gave birth, the watch the delivery doctor was wearing to calculate your contractions, the flowers that were given to your family when you cried for the first time in this earth.
A rhythm is a different manner, to own it, you have to conquer it first, and this might just be for an instance.
No ownership is more fragile than the music one, once you stop there’s no rhythm, no music, no nothing. Many can come behind you, and even play the exact same phrase but it’s never the same, as with our fingerprints, those expressions are unique and irreproducible.
Is the music yours? Does it belong to your listeners? Are the sound waves carved with your copyright infringement on them ??

Yesterday I went to the full moon drum circle in 79th and Collins, I’m not sure why but everyone thinks they own the place. While playing with Angelo, and playing in ‘threes’, something many drummers are not comfortable with, an old guy feels important enough to interrupt everyone and tells me to ‘hear’ the other drummers. Well, that precisely what I was doing, even with only 4 people playing. He went on to say that I wasn’t playing musically, mind you he was playing a single egg shaker, and that gave him the authority to interrupt everyone to tell them what to do.
I’ve never consider myself an expert drummer, I ain’t that good and even If I were I wouldn’t call myself that, but why someone without any idea decides what’s music and what’s not? Not only to find an extra set of drunk people that would pretend to tell you what to play… Those are the worst, while you’re playing the approach you with their current DUI and exclamate loudly to your ear the rhythm combination they’re expecting you to play.
I’m sorry Mr aficionado, but the answer is no. Never again. No drum no say, It’s that easy. Unless you’re invited to play on my drum, get the hell away from it, and from me too…
I see it this way:
Drummers play for themselves, and for fellow drummers. Dancers are an extra that’s always welcome and appreciated – It means that what you’re playing is good enough for someone to dance to – like a plan that blossoms and shares its flowers to you.

Nobody owns the rhythm, it’s as simple as that. Nobody owns the drum circle. You might send an email to remind people about it, but that’s it, not even when you get an illegal vendor selling wraps in the middle of the night at the beach.
Ownership is a complicated issue…

This weekend:
Broward drumcircle, Hollywood drm circle and the last Matthew Hill class at Miami beach