Monthly Archive for April, 2006

Earth Day

Published
by
Steve
on April 22, 2006
in Lifestyle
. 0 Comments

I did my earthly duty today and planted trees. Many of them.

I went out to Full Circle Farm to work on a project headed by Stewardship Partners. It’s part of their Snoqualmie Stewardship Program. I met David and Larry, two guys who work for and run Stewardship Partners. There were 4-5 people from Full Circle out working as well. All were great to meet and talk to.

A great bunch of people were out today to help plant trees at a riverbank restoration area bordering Full Circle’s farmland along the Snoqualmie River. There were at least 15 of us, many of which heard about the volunteer opportunity form our CSA newsletter. I signed up the day I found out about it.

Everyone helped out planting about 200 trees. We planted spruce, alder, cedar and some assorted shrubs and small plants (I can remember the names). The planting was right next to three huge rows of different kinds of gorgeous kale. The same kale that is harvested and included in our CSA baskets! We were 10 feet from the river at most and had an awesome view of the valley and the cascades to the east. It could not have been a better day!

It was a great way to spend earth day in the sun and do some good for the planet!

drumming fun

Published
by
Steve
on April 18, 2006
in Music
. 0 Comments

I went to the second session of the conga drumming class I’m taking with Geoff Johns. We’re learning the conga parts to a Rumba rhythm I think is called “Rumba Guaguanco.” It is a really cool, really challenging rhythm.

This weekend I worked on approximating it with GarageBand, Apple’s easy music player. It’s a rather pathetic approximation, but you can kinda get the idea what’s going on.

To play the rhythm, there’s three drummers and a different part for each drum. One thing I learned in the conga class is congas usually are played in sets of 3 and they all have different names. The high conga is called a quinto, the middle conga a segundo and the low a tumbadora or tumba for short. A clave usually goes along with these three drums.

So, anyway, I input the parts and then put together and exported a little song file. To give you an idea of what the different parts sound like, I made the file so the basic parts play separately at first.

Hear it … (2.5 MB) That link will pop-up in a new window and hopefully your media player can handle an mp3!

Keep reading while you’re listening for an explanation. The rhythm starts with the clave. Then the basic tumba part plays. The tumba stops and the basic segundo part plays. The tumba stops and then the two basic quinto parts play one after the other. Right after that, with no break, the three drums play their basic parts together, and then go right into the first, then the second variations. I think it stops after that.

The parts sound so basic alone, but man, when they all play together, it sounds so cool! In the rhythm arrangement we’re learning, I think there’s like 6 variations for each drum. I haven’t gotten to those yet! They are all a bit more complicated, but are similar to the same basic parts for each drum. And there are lots of really cool conversations that happen between the drums and make it really interesting. I wish Garageband had a better set of congas!

The class is fun. Challenging, as I’m not used to the hand drumming technique at all yet.

Happy 65th Birthday, Mom

Published
by
Steve
on April 15, 2006
in Miscellany
. 0 Comments

April 15th is my mom’s birthday. She’s 65 and I’m 32. So, I’ve been alive almost 1/2 of her life. Crazy! Isn’t there something about that with mom’s and kids? when they’ve been alive that long?

I guess I wonder every now and then what it would be like to be closer (in proximity) to my mom. We’re roughly 3,300 miles away. We talked almost once a week, sometimes more time passes between conversations, but we stay pretty current. I guess I come back to thinking most everything would be the similar. I’d still be me. I’d just have some family to hang out with regularily and share a connection that I don’t share with anyone else. And, that means a lot. It’s never had that strong of a pull though. But it is intensifying. Both my siblings will have kids by the end of this year. I miss my one nephew and I hardly even know him!

My thought for spending more time with them is hopefully going to be in conjunction with some serious traveling in the next year or two. I’d like to spend a month in Florida, then take off to Scotland, or Nepal, or Bolivia, or any number of places.

I kinda wish I could be there to watch her blow out the candles. Or to walk on the beach talking. Eat pizza at Manny’s. Everyone will be there but me this year.

It will be a happy birthday anyway! :)