Working on the drum feature and pretending school isn't starting this week.

It has been true for most of the summer that I've not been accomplishing quite so much as one would hope to have accomplished by, say, the beginning of one's senior year of high school. By the time I had less than two weeks to go, I realized that I should probably plan on doing nothing all day but practice and work on AP English until the end of summer. Writing the second part of this drum feature has also become kind of important. Ahhh, yet another item for the "Finish before school starts" list. I tried to be all organized about it and plan to work on that crazy-loud-samba-party-mess that is our percussion feature a little every day. But as it turns out, the process of writing notes on a staff simply cannot be given a schedule tantamount to the process of writing notes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Composition seems to be a much more complicated endeavor that occurs in short (or long) bursts of inspiration and thoughtfulness. It is at these random times of day in which I will listen to the clave pattern that will the basis of our samba groove and try to imagine what I might hear in a Brazilian drum circle (imagination is required here only because I've never actually been part of a Brazilian drum circle). If you just spend enough time processing the foundation of the song, that "dut, dut-du....dut-du", it can lead in all sorts of different directions. I can then take those different directions and string them all together, using lines, arrows, numbers, and circles, then eventually put it all into the Finale Allegro computer program that replays it note-for note with MIDI sounds. The hope is that this will result in what I call Habanero 2, the little hyperactive and fun-loving Brazilian cousin of my original drumline piece, Habanero. Yes, our theme this year is "Hot" and I felt the need- nay, the obligation to do something spicy. The outlook is l out looking well so far, and I hope it all lives up to expectation. Only time will tell! DUN DUN DUUUUUNN!!!!