So the drum class has been going really well. Class size has been small, which means people get a lot of attention, but we also move along quite quickly. Primarily what we're doing is taking about 3-4 primary rhythms and exploring how to orchestrate these with our instrumentation. It's a fairly straightforward set up - a big bass drum (a large plastic trash can), and a smaller bass drum (ditto); buckets for the high-end drum sound, and then shakers, bells, what have you. It's very similar to a Brazilian bloco, but I want to avoid jumping into samba-reggaes or other similar sounds because I want to differentiate what we're doing. Instead, we are playing Balé Tech versions of a 6/8 rhythm, a drum-and-bass rhythm, and Balé Step, which is essentially the ubiquitous reggaeton (and a host of other rhythms, depending on how it's played and at what speed).

Last night we finally hit the sweet spot on our 6/8 rhythm. Up until now, we've been doing really well with the club rhythms (which are also more familiar to people), but 6/8s are a bit more challenging - and honestly, I've now realized we were playing too slow. Some rhythms are easier to play (and hear) at speed, because the "space between the notes" is squeezed, and you get more confidence that you're either on or off. Once you slow down, there's a lot more room to play - but really, it just means more room to be "off".

In combination with starting at the right speed - for now - with the rhythm, I've found the right patterns. I originally looked at adopting a more traditional 6/8 for these purposes - something like the yaniko I originally learned, or a Brazilian rhythm because of the use of sticks. But these all have tough parts - the fast up-beat of a yaniko is something it takes a long time for a beginner to play consistently and well. The biggest challenge was finding the high end sound - I kept getting caught up in patterns that would be far too noisy at speed. Finally, I simplified all the parts, then then syncopated different bars for each of the parts - and all of a sudden it came together. And once we started playing it, I realized it matched up perfectly with the short bembé bell part. This one's a keeper.
(The main page for the bembé info is here.)