Steel Drum Life: Island music bass for a highly respected city official’s memorial and then a surprise Cajón request. Part 2 of 2.
Story Continued!
Jump back to part 1 if you wanna see the steel drum live music stuff: https://steemit.com/esteem/@steemseph/steel-drum-life-island-music-bass-for-a-highly-respected-city-official-s-memorial-and-then-a-surprise-percussion-request-part-1-2038cc3f4b66
We perform and everything was great. It was unpredictable, humidity challenged my fingers' finesse, we were thanked, booked a new gig, and received compliments.The event ended, we packed up, take our time, and I eventually get home way before sunset. I'm thinking my day is done.
Suddenly, my phone rings and it's a request for a Cajón player. The regular guy, my pal, is unavailable and they want me to sub. Yeah more money! Gotta pay rent! I'm doing it!
Rant About Recording Ourselves:
Sorry, there's no live broadcast of it. The other musician I'm working with doesn't have much appreciation for recording live performances. That's cool for him. He is proven. He has maintained the gig for a long time. I personally prefer to record things for quality assurance and protection.My recordings don't lie to me and my ears make it hard to be lazy when they hate what they hear.I'm grateful to be surrounded by other musicians that appreciate recording themselves. I encourage all musicians to record themselves. Lastly on that tangent, I would say that, sharing the recording with the rest of the world is not a necessary part of the education that come along with hearing ourselves perform. Just recording and listening back is a valuable tool for learning.
This is one example a modern Cajón:
For example, if there were a drum set player here, I would play percussion type parts that compliment the drum set, instead of emulating the drum set. Ask me questions...
Cajón Art:
It's pronounced like "ka-hone" to me. The letter "j" in its spelling sounds like the letter "h" to me except with a little phlegm or roll in your throat. (not roll in tongue)This is a few pictures of my cajón to honor the steel drum series featured in part 1:
Square:
Rectangle:
Hexagon:
Cajón Chicken Wire:
Dear @mathowl, if your not too busy, and also think it's fun, I would enjoy another critique of my shapes/labels. I've been building up my VP so I'll give you a much better upvote this time!
Everyone please go upvote @mathowl response here: https://steemit.com/esteem/@mathowl/re-steemseph-steel-drum-life-island-music-bass-for-a-highly-respected-city-official-s-memorial-and-then-a-surprise-percussion-request-part-1-2038cc3f4b66-20180620t205854617z
(It's probably too old. Upvote something else then. Thanks)
Fast forward to one week later... more Cajón.
I'm back again playing the Cajón a week later also. The regular guy is getting busy with drones. So, he also gave me a couple weeks worth of these gigs in August.
Yeah, money for coffee!
Infinite Coffee:
(Hey @mathowl I hope you're impressed with my number "8" as an infinity symbol?) 
That delicious image above features an espresso type drink called a "Cortado." (Yes, similar to a Gibraltar) I actually prefer a traditional flat white at the moment. Not many places make them and very few people remember their former popularity. I'm not sure why other coffee shops don't make traditional flat whites... I suspect it has something to do with the short pull technique required to make the espresso shot for a traditional flat white. Anyway, the Cortado is a great substitute. It's probably a preferred substitute at many espresso bars because it doesn't require a short pull. Wikipedia makes it sounds like the Cortado is from Spain. The name is like saying the espresso is "cut" with warm milk. You know, like drug nomenclature.
Did I mention that I thought the Cajón was from Spain also? It's not!
The modern cajón comes from Peru 🇵🇪 . As usual, someone will claim it existed before and somewhere else first. I can't argue any of that. Please feel free to discuss in the comments.
My first impression of a cajón was from a Djembe/Trap drum player and then that was followed by a flamenco player.By the way, the steel drum came from Trinidad 🇹🇹 and only Trinidad.
NEXT: Epic Steel Drum fail while performing. Including live and uncensored footage. (Possible a short and sweet shit post.)
Please feel free to ask me questions about instruments, handling clients, stage setup, bassist stuff, how to spot a good or bad client, good or bad gig... whatever!Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something again.
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is also
Bro I am so sick of seeing great informative post like this go unnoticed. I called a few friends and they came by to upvote you!
Whoa!!! Those are cool friends! Thanks for mentioning me and my post! I’ll promise to give all those supporters a little of my support also.
I really appreciate all your time and patience with SFR too.
It was my friends from @smartsteem lol I bought you a little upvote you don't need to reward them.
That is really nice of you @iamStan. I hope it didn’t cost you too much. I’ll pay you to show me how to do that LOL !
Just having some more fun with your photos today :)
It is a special type of tiling which you can repeat to create a non-periodic tiling. :)
That infinity 8 looks sweet (or should I say bitter :P ).
Non-periodic tiling is fun. We’re you able to complete the one above?
It has fractal potential doesn’t it? hmm... I just looked it up... the Penrose tiling featured in Wikipedia is beautiful. It comes up a lot when I search for images of non-periodic tiling. Some of these images have multiple star shapes ⭐️☀️
It would be cool to see some in 3D gif form.
https://giphy.com/gifs/math-tessellation-2poKrQOk6lmwM
This guy!!!
https://robertlovespi.net/page/22/
I read it all two times! But I still have no idea how you play on that black box called cajon (cahone), that picture where this box stands alone there with guitarist did'n clarify anything to me. I thought may be it is connected to some back unseen equipment, but I don't see any cords coming from it. So I infinitely (just as your cortado coffee) confused about it. I have this microlab stereo which look just the same as this cajon . Tell me, is it a drum?
Hi @johnstone thanks for responding and thanks for inspiring part 3 of 2.
It’s just a box. No chords and no electricity required for this acoustic instrument. It has some secret stuff inside that I didn’t talk about (See part 3 of 2).
Traditionally, we play Cajón with our hands. (some people use a brush)
First we sit ontop of it, reach down between our legs, and then smack it with our palms and finger tips to produce different sounds.
Since I’m trying to play it like a drum set, I mainly use my right hand’s palm to strike the middle of the cajón when I want a low tone (bass drum type sound). Then I’ll use my left hand to strike to top left corner to get a higher pitched tone that also brings out the snares.
On this black cajón, the top left corner is pealing away from the wood a little. When I smack it with my fingers, it produces a really cool snap type sound that accentuates the snares inside.
I should create a video to show you. Thanks for teaching me with your questions John.
Microlab Stereo sounds like an all in one battery powered portable speaker used to play music by bands like Stereo Lab. Is it?