Yesterday the adults reviewed some assiko (aka “highlife”) rhythms from last week and also added on some new patterns in the same family. We learned a long break as well, so there was a lot of memory involved! Things are getting more complicated, but the challenge is good and everyone seems up to it. The students seem more comfortable with the drums now and there seem to be fewer sore hands as the weeks progress.

The sounou rhythm was also introduced, which is a bit of a brain pretzel because it requires alternating right and left hands. It’s okay when it’s slow, but once you speed it up…!

The sounou has a nice swinging quality to it (it sounds almost like a waltz to me), which segued nicely into the Irish dance lesson for the day: introduction to the jig. The jig is in 6/8 time, which works well with what sounds like the 3/4 time of sounou. (I’m not entirely sure of the time signature of sounou, but that would be my guess.)

Students were introduced to the rising steps of the jig: rise & grind and sink & grind. These are hard steps to master, so we’ll be reviewing them more in the coming weeks.

The Haymaker’s Jig was the céili dance for this week, which incorporates the rising step. There are some complicated figures, especially the “weaving” down the line figure, but there was much less chaos than expected. This dance could be a contender for a St. Patrick’s Day performance?