OT - Rick's rhythm intensive

[Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com>]

I've been wanting to remark for a while on the rhythm intensive I took a 
few months ago with Rick Walker (I think a few others here have taken it 
too, yes? Luis or Per, maybe?). For anyone who's looking to improve 
their rhythmic sense, or just expand their musical consciousness, I 
can't recommend it enough, really. The coolest part is him showing how 
any rhythm, no matter how complicated, can be broken down to its 
component parts, which fit in a nicely finite family of building blocks. 
It's changed the way I pick up and can respond to beats that I hear, 
pretty dramatically. I took a rhythm workshop with Cyro Baptista last 
month, and I realized there that Rick's instruction had made me way more 
confident and comfortable with rhythm than I'd ever been before.

It's also just a pile of fun learning about things like the percentage 
of swing in a particular beat, or the characteristic rhythms in music I 
had never heard of. This is a massive understatement for anyone who 
knows him, but Rick has gotten around. A fount o' rhythmic knowledge.

(It's kinda worth the trip to Santa Cruz just to see his magic house of 
instruments from all over the place. It is wondrous. But I know he's 
been looking into doing long-distance lessons over video, too, which is 
nice for our far-flung group here.)

Daryl Shawn
www.swanwelder.com
www.chinapaintingmusic.com