Clarification of my last post

I have had feedback that my last post offended people. Actually that's good, they should be offended. They should be offended that King Leopold of Belgium is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 8.8 million people in the Congo during the late 1800's, that an estimated 2 million Armenians died in the early 20th century, that a larger percentage of Rom were exterminated by the Nazis then were Jews, and, yes, they should be offended that millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

However, even though the latest Zionist strategy is to tie the Palestinians in with the Nazis, factually the Palestinians had nothing to do with them. Palestine was ruled for centuries by the Ottomans and then in came the British with their usual colonial disasterous policies. Why and how the Palestinians came to bear the brunt for actions not attributable to them defies logic.

Palestinian people lived together for centuries with little or no problems that can be tied to religion. Jews, Muslims, and Christians managed to live together, next to each in fact, without animosity. If Muslims hated Jews to the degree the current myth goes, why were any left after 600+ years of Muslim rule?

The West came in via the UN and displaced the population. Palestinian Muslims went from living on 70-80% of the land to 50%. Isn't that usually called theft? Read yourself about the Zionist doctrine and how anti-semitic it has always been. Read more about how the "European" Jews discriminate against Jews from North Africa. The myth continues about how the Zionists against heavy odds fought and won more land. Who do you think financed the Zionists, who do you think bought weapons from the British government to supply the Zionists after WWII, who do you think controls most all the central government banks in the world? Hint: the family also makes very good wine weven when they serve as presidents of Zionism.

So, if you've got a problem with these two posts, I suggest you stop allowing yourself to believe in the propanganda you've bought into. Like the 1967 War was to save Israel. It wasn't and you can easily find quotes from Moshe Dayan and others saying it wasn't. What's so valiant about launching a premeditated, secret attack with a far superior military force?

Genocide

The actions of the world have a tendency to get in the way of more pleasant topics. Some of the things running through my brain are: 1) why is genocide only wrong when it involves Jewish people; 2) isn't there something inherently wrong with a political philosophy that defines manifest destiny as anywhere someone Jewish may have urinated at any time is part of Israel; 3) are the Zionists really angry because the Palestinians refuse to walk into ovens or is it really just more fun to murder unarmed civilians, especially babies being held by their mothers?

If you take out the indoctrination of the past decades and approach Israel's actions in an unbiased way, you can only come to the conclusion that Israel is a rogue nation that has no desire to live peacefully with any Arab country. Israel has continued to be ruled by mental deviants: terrorists, liars, and murderers. Name one instance in the past 50+ years where an Arab nation has sought to increase its territory militarily? I can think of only two instances. The Iran and Iraq war and, to a lesser extent, the first Iraq war with the USA which had more to do with Kuwait stealing Iraqi oil.

Non-dominant Hand Rim Stroke

Drumming tip of the week ( or maybe the month):

Terminology is usually "ka". It is really hard to put it in words alone. The key is to not be attached to getting sound at this point. Getting the correct movement is way more critical. Don't force it, don't do the "look how cool I am with my left hand flapping away". It is more of a straight drop: elbow-wrist-ring finger. Your thumb and index finger hang out together, your other 3 fingers provide the weight, the relaxed drop is speed, one of Newton's laws of physics, I believe. After you get the feel of the drop, you want to start minimizing the movement. You will end up playing this stroke with the heel of your hand and outside edge of your hand resting on the drum, you will hit only the top joint of your ring finger, and everything will be totally relaxed.

Doing this stroke on the drum rim itself will give you the highest sound with harmonic overtones. Moving it down onto the head will give a flatter and lower sound. Happy experimenting.

Internal rhythm structure

Back to drumming. The following is part of my response to a post on tribe.net about rhythms; what they are called and how to play them. I've been working with one of my students a lot on keeping the integrity of the internal pulse structure both when playing basic beat and when improvising. Here it is:

"Here's a few points of view triggered by a couple of talks I had with Reda Darwish and that Faisal, Tobias and I have had some discussion about. You could actually play any rhythm just with doums or teks on the pulses in the rhythm structure if they are correctly placed. In other words while the predominate way to explain (and unfortunately play) saidi is DT-DD-T-, this is incorrect. Likewise to do the same with maqsoum and play it DT-TD-T- brings you to a similar circumstance. The internal structures do not always fall exactly on the beat, depending on how you count them out.

You could very easily play what is usually considered a maqsoum pattern and actually be playing baladi. You can play maqsoum and use two doums to start off and not be playing baladi. It is highly unlikely that the chops you have worked out in either maqsoum or baladi will actually fit in saidi if you are playing saidi correctly."

Regime Change aka F.U.B.

While I really enjoy playing music, I was extremely pleased to see the regime change. Of course, over 50 million of our fellow citizens voted for the G&G ticket...quite scary. While we count down the days of our Mad Hatter in residence, let's keep in mind what, on the surface, kicked off the last 7 years of domestic, let alone international, hell. That day that will live in infamy like that other day (whenever that is). Maybe we can now get an answer as to why the CIA head of Middle East operations was visiting Osama bin Laden, while in a (U.S. military?) hospital in Qatar getting dialysis treatments, six weeks before the 11th of September attack.

Only 3 years later

I hope to add posts a little more frequently in the future so I guess some news is in order. Ling Shien is working on a zagat instructional CD which is nearing completion. She had four of the FatChance dancers come by (Anita, Christine, Marsha, and Wendy) to provide some feedback before the final mixing. Also Helm is tentatively scheduled to do workshops and a performance in London the second week of January '09. I've been reworking our website over the past (too) many months, so please feel free to stop on by.

Helm 2005 Tour report for the Gilded Serpent

Helm 2005 Tour report for the Gilded Serpent

zumara

zumara
Originally uploaded by toumbak.

Ling Shien on a Marin County hillside during the photo shoot for our CD Tribal Dance/ Tribal Drums

Benefit for Israeli Refusiniks

Helm plays a benefit for the Israeli Refusiniks along with Zendaghi Afghan Ensemble and Bizem Mahale Turkish Ensemble in Larkspur, CA November 13, 2005.