A Solid Week

I've been back in Toronto for exactly one week now and I've hit the “4-hours daily” goal easily. A big part of what makes it easier to practice for 4 hours a day is waking up at 6:00 every morning and, after about twenty minutes of morning activities, holing myself up in one of the undergrad practice rooms for two hours straight. (Actually, though, I don't practice for two hours straight. I break the time up into twenty minute chunks. Every twenty minutes, my alarm goes off, I get up, stretch, have a drink of water, and then settle back down into practicing for another twenty minutes. It sure feels more effective that way.)

My New York experience has recharged my batteries and I've got a much clearer understanding now of the relationship between my long term goals and the day to day grind. After my two hours in the morning, I spend most of the rest of the day reviewing and transcribing videos. I do continue to practice the material that Famoro showed me—and I’m advancing daily on that material—but because Naby Camara is coming to Toronto this weekend, I’ve had to recalibrate the trajectory a little.

Last year Naby played at Toronto’s Afro-Fest and in addition to taking a 1 ½-hour lesson with him, I made a one-hour video document of future lessons which I would subsequently transcribe and teach to myself. He and I have kept in pretty close contact since then. (He’s shipped a few balaw to me here and also sent me a copy of his instructional DVD. He’ll be coming to Toronto to do some performing with Alpha Yaya Diallo on Thurday and Friday and he’s asked me to help him organize some workshops for the extra days he’ll be in town.)

So, despite still having quite a lot of Famoro’s material to work through, I’m currently focusing on Naby’s DVD and the one-hour video that we made. There’s enough material there to keep me busy for several months, but I’m trying to learn just enough of it before his arrival to be able to ask him some specific questions and, I hope, receive some of the kind of guidance that will make the acquisition of the rest of the material (both his and Famoro's) higher surrender. Luckily, two of the pieces that Naby and I have already worked on together are the same pieces on which I spent most of my time in New York: Soli and Fasson. It will be great to take another lesson with Naby and get a different perspective on those two pieces. I still have so many questions!