Every Monday night, a group of 16 percussionists drum up a spectacular improvised show. Last Monday night, they performed with Violentango, a contemporary tango music trio.
The group rotates their Directors who take turns guiding the music using hand symbols and gestures to communicate the rhythms and patterns.
The directors rotated a few times throughout the show, performing 4 sets + an encore. The directors got better and better as the show went on, though each had their own style. My favorites were the last two; one of the guys seemed to get the group to play more samba beats and the last one really felt like a masterful orchestra. Interestingly there was a single girl in the ensemble. One of 16 is something for female representation, but apparently percussion is still a male dominated field too.
The crowd went wild as the beats got better, with a bit of moshing, but mostly dancing. Beers look like they were sold in liters or something, but they were the biggest plastic cups I’ve ever seen.
Both before and after the performance folks sold food and treats outside the theater with panes rellenos, empanadas, and even ice cold beers! We had homemade empanadas and chard bites from these street vendors, who were basically folks like you and me holding baskets of food they made themselves. They were delicious, filling, and cheap (empanada = 20 pesos each, two chard bites the size of your fist for 30 pesos)!
Download/watch a vid of these percussionists or check out their site for more =)
Tickets were less than $10 USD a piece—definitely worth stopping by if you’re in town on a Monday!
Did you enjoy the large size beer? Was it similar to “American” beer?
I’m not much for beer, but from what Jon says it’s not that good (he tried there Patagonia pale ale at a restaurant). We tried a fernet + coke another time, a licorice tasting alcohol that was not very good either…
It sounds like you are finding nice places and nice people . Fun gathering and delicious home made food.
Yep – percussion is still very male dominated from my experience. Being in concert band for seven years, marching band for four years, and in drum line for three, other drummers we saw in competition were so excited to see female drummers – men and women alike. When the girl drummers saw each other we would always call out and raise our mallets/sticks in support. Sometimes girls from other drum lines had obviously never seen other girl drummers before and would point and stare with excitement. They may have seen girl percussionists before, but snare and bass drummers are super rare, but that’s also because you have to have a lot of stamina and strength to play these instruments in marching band – they are heavy as hell!
I did have another girl on the drum line I was on who was very accomplished and would have moved up to the quads ( a drum with five heads despite the name and technically called multi-tenors), but she was simply too small to hold the massive thing up. Writing all this makes me curious how much the marching drums weigh. In regards to MODERN drums which are much lighter, snare drums weigh up to 55 lbs. Quads can weigh up to 55 pounds (but they protrude out a lot making them feel heavier), and bass drums (what I played) are 20-50 lbs (but I saw people saying they weighed up to 75 and 100 lbs too). I played the smallest and then the largest drums as I advanced (bigger drum equals a bigger sound which means your sound guides the band more). In the wind, bass drums feel heavier because the wind tosses you around more due to their shape. For all the drums, add the fact you can’t wear gloves and play drums which sucks if you play in a colder state and are really good because that means you’ll play well into the winter season!
Drum lesson complete for now 🙂
[ Pari: as a former colorguard member/”drummer mascot” (hung out with the drummers a lot) I salute you!]
Sam Man, that video of the performance gave me goosebumps! So GOOD!