workshop

For four Monday nights in October, the Samba Sisters are holding a workshop for women who want to come and have a go at samba drumming, whether they're interested in joining our band or not.

Tonight was the first of the workshops and this picture makes us all look very serious! There was a lot of concentration as we (as well as the newcomers) learned the parts of a tune on different instruments to the ones we usually play. I am used to playing the middle surdo (the big drum in the foreground) but tonight I learned the bell and tambourim parts. 

We always find that people learn in very different ways - some with words or listening to the rhythm, others by using musical notation or other visual cues. We all get there in the end, and have a lot of fun and laughter along the way :-)