On Friday, October 7th Tony Vacca came to BCD to perform for the students and faculty, and give a couple of percussion workshops as well. I knew Tony from having seen him at several concerts/festivals where I had been playing in a band that was sharing the stage with him and his band. I always noticed how incredibly energetic and down to earth he seemed, as well as being an absolute genius of a percussion player. The first time I heard him perform solo, I was in a different room when he started playing, and I was sure that I was hearing a group of four or five drummers. I was shocked when I went into the room where he was playing and it was only one guy.
How does a performer like Tony communicate to a group of kids he has never met before, and get them to pull off something that would be interesting beyond just a couple of basic drum grooves from West Africa in an hour or less?
After I introduced Tony to the kids, he did a brief solo on his percussion setup, partially so he could get their attention and also to introduce them to some of the basic patterns that they would be learning later on. From then on, he was constantly drumming and talking (or maybe more like rapping), giving each student a specific instrument and a part to play. Twenty drummers were playing six different rhythms simultaneously with Tony improvising on top.
Once everybody got the hang of their specific rhythm, he started to outline the shape of the song that we would perform later during the assembly. There was a lot of call and response going on both with drumming and with vocalizing the drum parts. Tony puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that the drum is an extension of one’s voice so it is important to be able to say or sing what you are doing. What was amazing to me was the fact that he spent a very minimal amount of time talking about drum technique beyond a basic bass/tone hand technique and how to hold a stick, and spent the majority of the workshop pointing out valuable life and big picture lessons that were happening during the process of learning the song and arrangement. He pointed out that although each individual part was fairly easy, the challenge is to try to learn all of the parts in the song.
Tony started out his performance during the assembly whisper quiet on the chimes and cymbals, which quickly developed into a thunder of gongs and other ambient sounds. This soundscape lasted for several minutes until he switched over to his main percussion station featuring a number of classic Latin and African drums, cymbals, and Tony’s trademark, standing up while operating foot pedals that are playing woodblocks and bells. He then moved over to his balafon (an African marimba) and played a piece on it while keeping time with bells on his legs and wrists, simultaneously incorporating bass drum and various high pitched percussion instruments. After that, he played a solo on the djembe drum which featured some spoken word and storytelling, and rounded out the show with a beautiful solo on the mbira (thumb piano). Then the students, who had been in his workshops, got up and did a great job of playing Tony’s song.
Speaking from a student’s point of view, I thought this was an incredible experience, not just for the opportunity to learn a great tradition of music from a master, but also to see somebody so incredible passionate about his art. At one point, Tony said that someone asked him how he can move and set up all these drums and sound gear, teach a clinic, perform a concert, and then have the energy to play a gig later on that night. Tony responded by saying that the act of drumming and making music generates more energy than you started with. I couldn’t agree more!! Jon Suters
