Welcome again to my regular blog. Keeping the frequency of one post per year is very difficult. Still, I manage.
I opened myself a door to blog not only about programming. All those posts about JavaScript and "so on" that I did through whole last year... life is much more interesting than that.
Recently I started drumming lessons. I played for two years some time ago and then after another two years gap I picked up the sticks again. This time with a different attitude: regular lessons with a teacher. It's been three months by now that I practice 1,5 hour twice a week + almost everyday exercices on the practice pad. I learned the important lesson: regular practice is the ONLY way. Maybe that will help me to maintain a blog.
I also moved to Barcelona, Spain. I work here as a software developer (mostly doing Ruby on Rails) at XING AG. That also gave me a big possibility to even more regular programming and a new approach to it. I'll leave this subject for later though.
Polyrhythms. Strange rhythms. Transposed rhythms. That is where my head is lately. Many times I practice patterns that at the beginning seem impossible (for me) to follow. I still lame (only three months of classes) but I realized that these practices have a big impact on my analytical part of brain. It is a funny feeling. When I started classes, first thing when I got a new pattern to learn I tried to analyze it somehow. I counted at loud and did the beat with my feet and hands. It worked, but...
...sometimes this approach fails! Once I could feel really hard the limitation of analytical approach to try to grasp a rhythm. Everything was fine until I started to learn bossa nova rhythm with paradiddle on hands. When I tried to analyze it before (or while) playing my brain was just frying. All the programming cells tried to accomplish the parsing of the partiture, but with big red failing dot at the end.
The way was, as my teacher told me, to let it go. Close the eyes, reset the mind. Keep the beat with legs only for half a minute. Slowly. Use the body to understand it. And then do the sticks rudiment on top of it. Without thinking!
I was amazed. It worked just fine, the body knew what to do. I knew the bossa nova, I knew the paradiddle, but I had to let it be to make it happen together...
The great part of this story it that now (after two months from what happened...) I can analyze this rhythm with no single problem. Play it with pure analytical approach, no art-spirit involved. Of course it sounds worse this way, and I prefer go with da flow... I wish to know how all that drumming thing impacts my programming skills... it has to be deeply connected.
