The melody used in this piece was originally taught to Derek and his brother Matt Wright (along with many fellow students) at the Lark in the Morning music camp in Mendocino, CA by Ernie Fischbach, David Brown and Brian Steeger. None of them knew a title for it, but all the students loved it. They were only able to refer to it as the "Long Afghan melody in Major, 7/8". That got shorted to "LAM7" and the name stuck.
Derek decided to reverse-engineer a new title from the same acronym, and wanted something that made sense to the struggle for liberation, and that could work as the name of a Breema sequence. He came up with "Life Always Moving". It also speaks to the body's need to be active and not sedentary. Then, he started to ponder how life is always moving, both directly on its own micro and macro levels, but also since all life is clinging to a planet somewhere that's spinning on its own axis, hurling around a star, that star is spinning around a galaxy, which is itself flying through space. On and on the levels of movement go.
Originally recorded as a live duet with Derek on cümbüş bağlama saz and Tobias Roberson on pandeiro (played in the style of a riqq) by Derek Bianchi at MuscleTone Studios in Berkeley, CA, 2011-08-12.
The 7/8 samba reggae arrangement is by Derek and Matt Wright. The Brazilian percussion was overdubbed by Derek in Goleta, CA in two sessions: stick and mallet drums (alfaias, surdo, repiniques, caixa/snare) on 2014-09-23 and hand drums (congas and timbal) on 2014-10-06.
Finally, Derek recorded Matt Wright overdubbing the Afghan rubab on 2014-11-29 in Goleta, CA.
Derek Wright is a long-time student, performer and teacher of music and dance. He has deeply studied Brazilian percussion, Middle Eastern stringed instruments, North Indian classical music, voice, body music, dance accompaniment, and improvisation.
Derek Wright has been a musician all of his life. He started his training thanks to a vibrant music program in the public elementary school he attended in Amherst, MA. Growing up in New Orleans, he was a jazz bassist at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a saxophonist, and percussionist. In 1993 he moved to Madison, WI to pursue majors in computer science and physics, and to continue his studies of jazz and bass with Richard Davis.
Derek plays a number of stringed and percussion instruments from around the world, especially the oud, saz, Brazilian drums, body music and voice. He has also collaborated with other artists to widen the palette of sounds available. The following sections introduce and explain all of the instruments heard within Derek's music.
I deeply care about your privacy. I don't collect any data from you unless you give it to me.
You can't log into my site (although if you could, there'd be a session cookie).
That's about it.
Derek has always tried to share his knowledge and understanding with others. As with love, friendship, goodwill, and many other beautiful things, the more you share, the more you have. His extensive studies have not only given him a depth of material, technique, grooves and musical approaches from numerous traditions, he has also experienced and learned from a wide variety of teaching styles in difference contexts. Benefitting from the mistakes and successes of numerous teachers around the world has enabled Derek to teach for a vast range of levels and experiences in numerous settings, explain things from many different perspectives, help students see the connections between things, and always work towards enhancing their overall musicianship and presence, regardless of the specific technique employed in each moment.
Workshops, master classes, and private lessons are available in many options, including: North Indian classical music; Maracatú; Other rhythms from Pernambuco (Coco, Ciranda); Carioca (Rio-style) Samba; Samba Afro/Reggae; Introduction to Candomblé rhythms; Body music; Non-Western (Sargam) notation (for rhythm, drum arrangements, melodies, dance, etc); Instrument technique and ergonomics (especially stringed and percussion instruments); Breema Bodywork and Self-Breema.
DerekWrightMusic.com is proudly built with the Pushtape distribution of Drupal, an open source content management system/framework used by many sites on the Internet with contributors from all over the world. When not making music, practicing Breema, and/or teaching, Derek is a computer scientist, programmer, and project manager. He is known as dww, a prolific contributor to Drupal with many roles over the years, and previously was a senior developer for the HTCondor High-Throughput Computing system at UW-Madison.