On caixa in Monobloco

Started playing caixa with Monobloco today! rah!

Monobloco is Rio's most famous, largest, and probably the most skilled bloco. (though Banga is coming in a close second, these days.) They were the first "modern stage bloco" - founded about ten years ago on the then-revolutionary ideas of solid music education, running classes all year, and a complex repertoire of a wide variety of rhythms (not just samba). Monobloco does huge stage shows every Friday in Lapa's largest hall, the Fundicao Progresso, throughout January and February. It all leads up to their famous Ipanema beach parade on the Friday after Carnaval - it's the last parade of the season and it draws an immense crowd.

I wasn't quite ready for Monobloco on caixa last year, but this year I thought I'd take a shot at it. (I'm planning on third surdo in Banga.) So I trooped over to the Sala Baden Powell just in time to watch the end of the beginner class. Junior Teixeira, the tamborim leader who I took a some classes from last year, spotted me and came zooming over to give me a nice warm welcome-back, and then introduced me to the caixa leader Freddy. Freddy turns out to speak fluent English and he kindly took the time to explain the whole set-up for me:

There's a huge "beginner" class (6-8pm Mondays), which in the US would be called "intermediate". Most of them - not all - will probably get to play a few pieces in the January stage shows, but they won't be formally part of the Monobloco bateria.

There's a huge "intermediate" class (8-10pm Mondays), which in the US would be called "advanced". Freddy said "probably 90%" of the intermediate class will qualify for Monobloco for the full stage shows & the parade.

And then there's the "advanced" class, which in the US would be professionals - well, except - "We didn't have any time to actually do the advanced class this year" said Freddy, "so we're hoping that they'll just all remember everything when we start playing the shows. We're hoping to arrange a couple rehearsals right before the shows start. I hope."

And then there are the Monobloco pros, which in the US would not exist.

So I jumped on in on caixa in the "intermediate" class. (Freddy was kind enough to give me the benefit of the doubt - "If you say you're a musician, I'll trust you.") I haven't played caixa in over a month now, and felt horribly clumsy and stiff. We jumped right into full-on samba, and Freddy immediately switched personality gears rather terrifyingly, from the warm and friendly guy I'd been chatting with into a formidable and ferocious mestre. He was constantly scanning his section with some superpowers I hadn't noticed till then, particularly the burning red laser eye-beams, and cupping his ears to use his bionic hearing so he could focus on hearing one player at a time. He didn't let a single player slip through with a SINGLE sloppy hit. And he'd parked me right smack in front of him so that he could keep an extra-intense laser eye-beam on me. I swear it was burning a hole right in my caixa.

As soon as we started, I thought, oh hell! I can't play this thing at all! - but then I had the curious sensation of it all coming back and spreading down through my hands - all those neurons and muscles going "oh yeah, caixa!" I could almost feeling them all waking up, yawning, the sleepy little caixa neurons slowly getting out of bed, and over about ten minutes my rusty playing progressively coalesced, smoothed, got consistent, and then louder and stronger. It was weird - an almost physical feeling of cogs clicking into place. Oh yeah... Caixa! As time went on I saw Freddy visibly stop worrying about me, and the laser eye-beams started focusing on other players. Whew.

For samba we'd started with straight chatter (RlrL) and then pure Viradouro. A few simple samba breaks; but basically pure samba, no flash. We went after that into a nice coco, with a really cool interplay of surdo, repique & caixa.... well, anyway, it was really really fun and I'm totally psyched to be playing caixa with Monobloco, and I went bouncing down the street afterwards, elated and feeling like I am where I am supposed to be.

THEN, to top it off, I met my friend Denise (of the great tour company Rio Hiking - if you want a nature fix while in Rio, they're the people to call). We went to Carioca da Gema for the BEST ever night of pagode & samba. It was the exact same magnificent singer and band that I'd seen there with Justin and Robyn last year! my all time favorite band! It turns out they play there every Monday. The singer, Richa, is a big guy who is always all dressed in white. He has the most indescribably silken voice that makes every song feel like you're floating down a river. He went through the most beautiful selection of classic sambas from past Carnavals, backed up by Paulao Sete-Cordas (a god of the seven-string guitar, as his name tells you, "Paul Seven-Strings" - in Brazil, master musicians are named after their instruments) and a percussion line-up that was so perfectly locked, in such a perfectly smooth and relaxed and sweet way ... I could not believe how wonderful the music felt. Denise and I started to samba. As soon as we started to dance, ZING, out of nowhere a handsome black dude with long dreads came levitating over the floor to me like he'd been pulled on a string, in that magical sideways glide of great male samba dancers, apparently using some sort of Brazilian anti-gravity samba shoes. He started chatting to me in Portuguese; hey, I'll take that as a compliment to my dancing.

He danced with us both, everybody danced, and we all danced and danced and danced.... till finally the band had to stop....

I thanked Richa for his amazing singing. Denise told him I'd "come to Brazil for six months just to play surdo" and he said congratulations to me - "Parabens!"

Here's two coco caixa grooves from Monobloco:
Coco groove 1 (written in clumps of four 16ths. Z is a right buzz, z the continuation of the buzz)
RlrR lZzL
(this may not sound like a coco in isolation, but it lays against the repique & surdo parts in a really cool way that makes it all come together as a coco.)

Coco groove 2. This one is different the fourth time around.
RlrL rlRl
RlrL rlRl
RlrL rlRl
RlrL rL-L