Monday I practiced my washboard with Bill who attempted to drill some rhythmic sense into my rhythmically dense brain.
It’s one of those things, behind me are two years of practicing that instrument that have made me actually think I could learn to play it properly – I never would have though I could do what I now can. On the other, all the future work necessary to actually start making music with it as opposed to just barely keeping a rhythm.
On his advice I spent an hour attempting to continuously only play the back beat with the metronome and a few recordings. Occasionally trying to fill in spaces without emphasizing the down beat. I screwed up continuously, getting the back and the down mixed up and making a mess of it all. But it did give some interesting moments so I guess have no choice but to persist, which seems my main existential leitmotif at the moment: pursue against all odds!
I have been enjoying jazzing up my new board however! Because of its slightly different shape I had to reverse it, meaning playing with the feet up, so that I could sit down to play the hi-hat. I still plan to put the second bulb horn on the left below the other one, my left hand simply does not want to be precise enough…