We have rituals. We human beings. They keep in touch with ourselves, with our past and with our community. And with our gods, for who belives.
As musicians we are full of rituals, for gigs, practice, composing, flying (driving) from one show to another, entering and leaving the hotel room, packing and unpacking our instruments. As musicians we also know well that from rituals to obessive compulsive disorder the way is not so long.
Every day i open the classromm door inside the music school (no key, as is broken and as we trust people), put down my backpack near the piano, say hello at myself looking at me from the mirror. Then i go to the bar to make a cup of coffee that i won’t drink and will be leaved cooling on the cabinet in front of the drums. Then i start practicing. Not after changing the boots i use to ride motorbike with a more confortable pair of shoes, putting in my poket the metronome and my minidisc on the broken throne next to me. When i’m done i like to pair my sticks before putting them in the backpack, return the undrink coffee cup to the bar (washing it), pack all my stuff and go to work.
It’s some kind of relaxing tecnique, before start practicing. A way to slow down, leave some thoughts off the room and start feeling drums, music, sounds and patterns in my head, first of all. I have my ritual and rythms start moving from the deep blue of my brain to hands, arms, legs, feet.
Drums are connected to rituals. In the past (somewhere and sometimes still today) they were made with skin of sacrificed animals, where sacrificed is “made sacred to the god”. They are played in ceremonies and liturgies and often (as the the Bata drums de fundamento) they are the voices of the gods or the god him/her/itself.
When i have a gig, my ritual is to stay a while in the middle of the stage, smiling to the music played before, feeling people, notes, lights, instruments have been in the place in past.
We shouldn’t forget the spiritual side of playing, as it make as better musicians, and, if we are lucky enough, better human beings
After all we are part of the Great Show. Right?
