"Whew!" Oliver said.
"I'm sorry," Jennifer said. "I didn't know you were going to be the
orchestra." She giggled.
"First time for everything," Oliver said. They took a walk and watched
an osprey bring fish back to a nest of sticks high in a tree on an
island just offshore. They got down to serious drumming for an hour
before lunch and then for several hours afterwards. They warmed up with
straightforward Native American rhythms. Oliver found that he could
contribute as long as he played the most basic beat.
In the afternoon, they got into a Latin groove. Raul assigned parts and
demonstrated the son clave. Oliver, another drummer, and a boy with a
triangle were to play just the clave. Thank God for the other drummer.
Oliver and the boy followed him through the center of the complications
as the group got into synch and began to rock. He felt a duty to do it
right, to keep the beat, keep the faith. When they broke up for the
day, he felt refreshed. They continued sporadically on the bus, but
later, when Oliver was by himself, he couldn't recapture the beat. This
irritated him.
"I bought a book," he told Jennifer the following week. "I guess I'm
not musical.
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