Why I am not parading in the Sambodromo

People have started to ask me "Why aren't you parading in the Sambodromo?" as if any musician's sole desire when in Rio should be to parade in the Sambodromo. That's never been my goal - not for this year, anyway. It'll be fun someday, and someday I'll do it; maybe when I return 2 years from now. But right now, I am here to learn, and parading in the Sambodromo, turns out, is not the best way to learn. Parading in the Sambodromo requires you to do almost nothing else. You can't miss a single rehearsal if you want to parade in a Grupo Especial escola - if, like me, you are new here, don't have escola connections yet and are not from the community. It means, three or four evenings a week, plus travel time (up to 2.5 hours one way.). And all that time you are only playing 1 song on 1 instrument.

And even if you do make all the rehearsals, you're still not guaranteed a spot. It's very political. The president of one of my escolas, Sao Clemente, over-ruled the mestre last week and gave away most of the bateria spots to a set of his friends who have never been to any rehearsals. So I won't be parading with them, and neither will my friend Olivia, who's been playing with them for months. She just laughs about it. "This kind of thing happens all the time... I can't even tell you how many times, how many YEARS, my mother has worked all year in a bateria and then not gotten to parade and we always go through this whole trauma about it, but you know, playing in the rehearsals is actually the best part anyway. And you know what is funny, finally it has worked to her favor - Grande Rio just gave her a bateria costume for this year, because she has connections there, even though she's missed all the rehearsals! And she missed all the rehearsals because she was playing in Sao Clemente! But Sao Clemente wouldn't give her a costume because the president gave them all away to his friends! Isn't it funny? You just have to laugh."

She's right; the rehearsals are the best part. Just by attending a few rehearsals, semi-regularly, you learn a LOT. And those rehearsals are such intense, wonderful fun. I think of those marvelous times I had with Mocidade, leaping around in the dark street and on the ramshackle stage in the quadra hall. And of how much it changed my caixa playing! But I don't need to be in the parade with them... I made that decision long ago, in January, when I decided to go to Banga rehearsals instead. But you bet I will be cheering from the stands when they go by.

In the end, I chose the blocos instead of the escolas. Almost every time I had 2 rehearsals scheduled on the same night for a bloco and an escola, I'd go to the bloco. And this happened every single Friday (Monobloco vs Sao Clemente), Sunday (Mocidade vs Banga), Tuesday (Banga vs Sao Clemente) and Wednesday (Banga vs Monobloco vs Mocidade). Why blocos? Because the blocos (the good ones) are more challenging for me - much more creative, and with a much more diverse repertoire. I learn more with the blocos. Simple as that. For all that Mocidade did for my caixa playing, Monobloco has done more. In Monobloco, I play 5 different caixa patterns, including Mocidade's; in Mocidade, I only play the Mocidade pattern. And the reason I was able to play third surdo so easily in Mocidade was entirely because of what I'd learned from Banga.

So, I AM parading in Carnaval with my wonderful blocos Banga and Monobloco! They both have marvelous parades coming up - Banga this Sunday afternoon (4pm) starting at the north end of the Rua Jardim Botanico, and Monobloco the Sunday the week after Carnaval at 10am on Copacabana beach. Come see them!

Especially, please come see the Banga parade. The next post will be about what happened to Banga this last weekend. They had something nasty happen. Please come to the parade & show your support. (Plus, it'll be a really great parade. Last year most people said it was the best parade they'd been to, and, as an extra incentive, the newspaper reviews afterward commented on the "unusual profusion of beautiful women.")