Cajon

i feel like building a cajon. Got to go somewhere and hunt for proper wooden boards and the power tools that a boy like me should have had years ago.

Remember music lessons in primary school? The teachers taught you to play recorders, sing auld lang syne (and everyone pronounces it like or lang shit). I had a remarkable music teacher in P3 called Ms Christina. She introduced The Carpenters to me. I can never forget the tune Top of the World. However I also remember another music / art teacher I had (in primary school your science teacher may very well be your PE teacher).

She gave an interesting assignment – create your own instrument. She told the class to use the weekend to create a novel instrument created out of anything found anywhere. So on Monday, my classmates showed up with beautiful masterpieces crafted by their parents. Tissue boxes with rubber bands strung over them. Tissue boxes with a hole dug open and rubber bands strung over them. Tissue boxes with even more rubber bands strung over them. Half filled water bottles. Quarter filled water bottles. Rather creative. You can always tell the ones made by the parents. Somehow they just seem to have insipid tastes – simple colors brushed neatly over the instruments, entirely incompatible with the instrument bearer’s ADHD behavior.

The teacher started the monday lesson the way she usually did – “take out your instruments and put them on the table! Then when I come by you play your instrument.” followed by the usual row by row inspection. Dozens of silent guitars performed Cage’s 433. (They should know that loosely strung guitar strings over tissue boxes don’t really produce loud sounds. Even worse when they hold the tissue on the sides). The water bottles managed to produce some sounds.

She reached my table. It was empty. Not even my pencil box. I had a reputation for being slightly rebellious and lazy in class, so she went “never do again?”. I looked at her, amazed, and said “got got!”. I stood up, shifted my table a little. Then I started slapping the table. Not randomly as a kid does. I did the entire lion dance beats on my table (I happened to be in Chinese orchestra percussion section so we fooled around with that tune quite often) using the center of table top as (sort of) the tom-tom and the outer areas as the rim shots. I finished my repertoire and sat down.

That day I learned that
1. The table is not an instrument because
a. It is already in the classroom
b. I am lazy and I cheat
c. It is too loud (compared to the silent guitars)
2. I am a lazy boy who can’t be bothered to do my work.

Back to drafting plans for my cajon.