New Song Diary: Changing directions

I've been banging my metaphorical head against the wall trying to build up ideas for my song idea. Nothing happened.

I decided to instead turn my energies to a novelty song idea I wanted to try, using shimedaiko resting on their sides/edges rather than on stands. I have some ideas from fiddling around, but again, no solid concepts. Frustrating.

So I'm going to do what I didn't want to originally, and that's continue working on a piece I already had in development when I started this series. It's got promise, it's unique, it's got a gimmick, and I might as well get it out of my system!

The idea of the piece is simple. Each player gets three drums in a row (left, center, right). The left hand plays a steady 1-2-1-2 beat on first the left then then center drum, alternating, over and over. And that's the gimmick. The left hand never stops, throughout the entirety of the song. The right hand gets to play all the patterns, downbeats, upbeats, syncopation, improvising, etc.

I've workshopped this concept with both the entire company as well as Artistic Staff, and have already found some things that work and things that don't. Time to work on the stuff that does! Stay tuned...