164. VIDEO: Finding the funk?

After a good 10 minutes of involuntary syncopations, it’s just possible that I’m finding my groove a tiny bit.  Since three times through the nerve-wracking slow torture of “Oh! Susannah” has me sticking straws in my hair, I switch to sampling one of the keyboard's rhythm backgrounds, which does help me feel the beat.  But Gus’s response is utter chaos and full entropy; his foot needs an exorcist as it flails the hi-hat pedal.  Until we return to “Susannah,” and he regains his focus, following his conductor with remarkable acuity:

If I can resist being driven ‘round the bend by its electronic inanity, I’ll try more “Susannah” again next time.  Anything for the donkey . . .

163. VIDEO: “Oh, don’t you cry for me”

In elementary school, I invariably caught the ear of every music teacher.  But not in a good way.  She’d slowly walk by the line of singing kids, with her head cocked and with a puzzled, queasy look on her face, and then she’d stop and point at me.  “You just mouth the words,” she’d tell me.  “You be a listener.”  She was a tad brusque, but she wasn’t wrong.  When I didn’t lose the tune altogether, I was always, always flat.  I don’t recall getting similarly gonged off the stage when we played simple percussion instruments, but I suspect I wasn’t much better with those.

Now many decades later, in a horse barn far away, when it comes to finding the (pretty much unmissable) beat of “Oh! Susannah,” I’m still no better than a braying ass.   And this particular ass sets the tone for our musical endeavors quite eloquently when his first gesture is to shove his hi-hat cymbals to the ground.  Nevertheless, I’m game to channel my inner tone-deaf child, and I start up up the music.  

Slowing the song’s pace seems to help us both.  Still, my struggle to give him his cue in advance of the beat, so he has time to lift and drop his hoof on the pedal, looks awkward and sounds worse:

 

144. VIDEO: Orchestrations

My friend Paul — he who so sturdily up-armored the drum and cymbals foot pedals — has furthered Gus’s musical career yet again.  I told him my aspirations for a bicycle-horn holder that could attach to the Sweet-Ass bandstand, and he devised the perfect solution. 

Onto a piece of two-by-four, he seated a firm but flexible rubber housing for the base of a CB radio antenna; into that he vertically inserted a thin fiberglas-plastic rod (such as homeowners use to mark the edges of their driveways for the winter snowplows); and at its top end, he attached a stub of PVC pipe and clamped on a new, plastic, hot-pink bulb horn that squeaks like the loudest and most obnoxious dog toy imaginable.  He even drilled a small hole through each end of the rod and used little cotter-pin devices to prevent the rod and the horn from twisting or spinning.  It’s a MacGyver of beauty.

And Gus loves it very much.  I wondered if he might at first be alarmed by the horn’s squawk being so much louder and more sudden than the old horn’s, but I shoulda known:  when he’s the one causing the noise, the brasher the better.  I still like the classic lower pitch of the old horn too, so I’m dreaming up ways to mount that one next to the new one.  And to teach Gus yet another conductor’s hand-signal to differentiate between the two . . .

[Here's one 90-second video, if you

prefer that to these staccato snippets...]

At this point in our studies, we’re pretty clear and reliable with the downward-pointing arm for stepping on the cymbals pedal and with the slow horizontal arm for playing the keyboard.  He’s still keener on stomping the pedal, so usually we start our “mi-mi-mi” warmups with him ignoring my keyboard signal and instead just pounding away on the cymbals.  But soon we get into sync, and the concerto begins to take shape.

Of course, any orchestration requires not just notes but also rests (unless it’s by Philip Glass, whose music beats any psy-ops torture at inducing abject, driveling insanity).  And no artiste can segue between “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “Sabre Dance” without risk of seizure or syncope.  Therefore, especially given Gus’s near-obsession with his music, I feel it important for his health and welfare to ensure that he take a breather now and then.  Since he’s an expert at backing up for the cha-cha and he’s an old hand at “the grownups are talking (so just stand still and be patient),” I can ask him to step away from the bandstand and then invite him back to it with a modicum of calm and control.

For directing Gus to the horn, my thumb-and-fingers squeeze gesture is still a work in progress:  I need to learn where to place my hand so that Gus can see it beyond his enormous snout, and Gus needs to learn that it’s not an invitation to nuzzle my hand for a treat.  He also needs to firm up his understanding that the bulb is the part of the horn to bite, rather than its flared bell.  The shriek of this new horn seems so gratifying to him that I’m confident he’ll learn these finer points in no time at all.

Next, watch for video of our newest instrument:  the jingle bells.

137. VIDEO: Winds and percussion

Gus has taken to all his musical instruments like a duck to water, so he’s ready to tackle some combination exercises.  He’s already had a taste of this, taking turns honking the horn and tickling the ivories.  Now here’s a start with the horn and the bass drum (and that fifth leg you see? that’s him dangling with delight):

 

136. VIDEO: Crabwise

As true twinkletoes, Gus’s little donkey hooves are flittering in all directions.  His chacha alongside me continues to improve, and his back-and-forward chacha facing me is so nimble and quick that he also uses it to locate and repeat-stomp the pedals for the hi-hat cymbals and the bass drum.  Now I’m teaching him how to sidepass, and he’s picking it up with his usual handiness and talent.

In Western and trail riding, a classic way to teach the sidepass is to have the horse straddle a rail laid on the ground: forefeet on one side of it, rear feet on the other.  Along with rein and leg signals from the rider, the ground pole encourages the horse to move only sideways so as to avoid clunking its feet against the obstacle.  

With Gus, since he’s so cued in on matching my steps, I wonder if I can simply stand next to him and model a sidestep.  To help light the path, I plop down three wooden mats right next to each other.  With him standing at one end of the mat row, I stand at his side, say “mat,” and kinda nudge him sideways while taking one big, dramatic lateral step toward his feet.  At first he turns a bit to face the next mat, or he takes a step back or forward, or he stands pat and stares inquiringly at my boots.  

I keep trying slightly different body language to see what might read to him best — not the clarity and consistency you’d want for training a dog or a horse, but I hazard that Gus can handle it.  Through it all, does he object?  Does he lose his cool?  Does he give up and quit the scene?  Not a bit of it.  He keeps lining up again, he keeps trying to decipher what the hell I’m asking for, and he keeps tweezing out the key information.  He also keeps getting treats for good efforts.  He might as well wear a sandwich board: “will work for food.”

After just three or four tries, I say “mat” and he shuffles sideways toward the nextdoor mat.  Big clicks and treats.  Soon he adds another shuffle to move all the way over onto the mat.  And before I know it, he’s actually crossing his feet to perform a genuine sidestep, at least some of the time.

 

As we refine the exercise, I’ll separate the mats farther apart and then do without them altogether.  And very soon, I’ll replace “mat” with “sideways,” so that we can keep our original “go mat” cue and also have an independent and distinct sidepass cue.

What’s it all in aid of?  Not one damn practical thing.  But how fetching will those little hooves look as they cross and recross in a donkey dance?