Guiro Drama

I really should go to sleep but at the risk of revealing too much of the magician/musician's secrets I'll share this. Woke up after a rough night of patchy sleep and did a fair amount of practicing for the gig today in San Jose at the Jazz Festival. Specific on the agenda was the first song on the set list, Silver's Serenade, which is an instrumental. In our rehearsal Thursday Wayne had suggested I play guiro but check out the breaks on the recording (I don't have a chart for this tune). So I went home that night and did practice to the recording, noting that there was a 4-bar percussion break at the top of the tune with drums and congas, followed by the whole band playing in time. Then after a horn line there was another break just before the trombone solo, and two more breaks before the sax solo and bass solo. Then at the end, there was a five-note syncopated pattern played by the percussion in unison. Anyway, the point was simply to know where not to play so as not to stand out.

So, right before the gig I am talking to David the bass player extraordinaire, who has also been my teacher in the past. I comment on how the shekere player on the previous set could really be heard--was it on a wireless pickup? He said that's just how it carries on stage. I said, "Should I be worried about playing guiro?" He said, "Well, the guiro player is really the driver. We'll talk after the gig about how you play guiro." "Oh no, you're trying to avoid breaking me down right before the show?" "Yeah, I'm trying to pump you up," he laughed. "We'll talk after." I told him some story about how I used to work in construction and learned how men dig holes and likened that to playing guiro with a lot of force like a man. He concurred. "You aren't going to dance while you play, are you?" "No, John already told me not to. I'll just play." Well, from that point on I was screwed. Suddenly I felt nervous and crappy.

I got up on stage and damn if that wasn't the hardest I ever gripped that sucker while trying to stay on the beat. Then periodically I would try to relax my hands because the death grip definitely interferes with your speed and accuracy. In my head I'm screaming, "serenity NOW! Effortless mastery, NOW!". Just kidding about that--but I wasn't far from it. Look, I know I have a lot to learn and maybe I'll never get to the point of true rhythmic independence but sometimes you play better from the standpoint of the blithering idiot than when thinking the whole band's groove is resting on the masterful playing of the gourd in your hand (even if it is partially true). I would be good, and then I would slip a bit. Who knows if anyone in the audience noticed it, but I'm sure those on the bandstand did. At one point Wayne turned to me and said my downstrokes were all that was being heard, so I ground into those upstrokes. Miserable. Again, I'm sure I can get better, but I have played better in the past. It was just ironic that, having dutifully practiced, it turned all yucky. After that song I ditched the guiro, though a few songs later Wayne asked me to play it again. I did a bit but had the same damn trouble. Perhaps when I play with his band I'll just forget the guiro--leave it for my own gigs where there's not so much pressure. Although Kat confided in me today that on a gig of hers years ago someone told her to stop playing guiro, and she was really pissed. I suppose one definition of a working musician is someone who has not stopped making music of one sort or another despite repeated requests to do so!