MaSamba - the Sounds of Brazil

(MaSamba logo - fundit.ie)

For our second week of music class, our professor, Caroline Elbay, brought us to the MaSamba Samba School in Dublin. In addition to performing at various festivals and parades throughout the year, the MaSamba School in Dublin provides people the opportunity to come and learn Samba. Samba is a brazilian dance and musical genre. When we were on our way to the studio, I had no idea what to expect. I was not even sure what Samba music was. I was half expecting it to be a type of Irish music. After arriving at the studio and finding out that Samba was a type of Brazilian music, I was happy to hear that even in Ireland they have such a diverse mix of music. At the studio we were met by our instructor for the day, Sylvian, and another member of their Samba band, Ruth. Sylvian was not only extremely friendly and welcoming, but he gave us a great opening introduction to Samba music. He was very knowledgeable about the whole genre including history, background, instruments, and of course the important technical stuff of playing the instruments. Sylvian had each of us choose an instrument to play. Some of the instruments included agogo bells, ganza shakers, snare drums, bass drums, and tamborims.

(agogo bells - bryansmusic.com)

(samba drums - newcastledrum.co.uk)

(ganza shaker - woodbrass.com

(tamborim - grcesuniaodailhadamagia.blogspot.com)

Sylvian went around teaching each group of instruments the beat they needed to play for the song. The song we played was called Afro-bloc. It was a relatively easy song to learn, but Sylvian showed us how to spice it up, using all different techniques such as giving each group of instruments a solo part and then layering the other sounds back in one at a time. Also putting a random break in the middle of the song helped to change it up a bit. For our first time gig, I think we did a good job. Everyone was loving it! He also had us switch instruments after a little while to be sure we could each get a taste of a few different ones and to keep it interesting. I was able to learn the tamborim beat for the song as well as the agogo bells and the bass drum. I think the agogo bells were my favorite, there was just something about the beat that appealed to my ear drums. At the end of the session, we were all sad to go, but Sylvian invited us all to come back for their open rehearsals on Wednesday nights. Hopefully we can get a small group together to go back and learn some more Samba!

Intro to Music in Dublin

Hello all!

It has been about two weeks since all my fellow Champlainers and I arrived in Dublin. The first weekend was filled with various orientation activities including powerpoint presentations, scavenger hunts, group outings to a couple of pubs and a beautiful town outside of Dublin, called Bray. Anyway, after this activity filled weekend, Monday morning finally arrived.. the first day of classes. Of course everyone expects the first week to be a drag as it is usually entails awkward introductions, going over the syllabus, grading procedures, future assignments, etc etc. However Monday morning we were pleasantly surprised with our first class of the semester. It is called Cultural Immersion through Irish Music. Yes, we did do introductions and yes we did go over the syllabus, but this syllabus was different than most of the others we were going to receive the rest of the week. Yes, this syllabus was filled with grading procedures and future assignments, but it was also filled with various activities we were going to embark on over the semester. Some of these included making our very own traditional Irish drums, called bodhrans, learning how to play a few different instruments including the drum and a brass whistle, as well as attending various concerts/gigs throughout the semester. What a way to start off the semester! I'm sure all my fellow students were just as happy about all of this information as I was. Included in this syllabus was also an assignment to be done throughout the semester which would be our individual creative projects. It is an open-ended project, meaning each student may decide on their topic and content themselves. For my creative project.. well this is it! I am starting a blog which will feature all of our activities we embark on in our music class this semester. Whether it be a reflection on our instrument lessons or reviews of the Irish music concerts/gigs we attend this semester. For those of you interested in hearing about Irish Culture through the Sounds of Music, please enjoy!