Transcript
Speaker: Hey everyone, this is Emily Jane Acree and Adam Price and you're listening to the Relative Rhythms Podcast.
Speaker: Today we are excited to introduce tap dancer, educator, and recording artist Tommy Wasuda.
Speaker: Tommy began his professional career in St.
Speaker: Louis where he co-founded the tap company St.
Speaker: Louis Rhythm Collaborative.
Speaker: He is currently based in New York City and has performed in venues such as the Joyce Theatre, 92nd Street Y, and Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Speaker: He teaches across the city, including at Steps on Broadway and at workshops and conventions throughout the East Coast.
Speaker: In 2021, he recorded with the jazz group EBTKS on their self-titled album as a tap percussionist.
Speaker: We are thrilled to have Tommy on right after the release of his first solo album entitled Drum Shoes, featuring just solo taps the entire way through.
Speaker: We talk about his approach to practice and study, his experience and insights into the recording process as a tap dancer, and his many musical and percussive influences.
Speaker: Please welcome to the podcast, Tommy Wasuda.
Speaker: Tommy, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: We're so excited to be able to talk to you after your recent album release.
Speaker: Before we get into that, though, we'd love to hear kind of your superhero backstory, what brought you to your art form and when you decided to turn it into a career path.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Similar to a lot of dancers, I started very young.
Speaker: I started at three years old at a dance studio in Missouri where I grew up.
Speaker: And it's just, it's always been a part of my life being in dance class.
Speaker: I don't have any memories of not going to the dance studio and having to
Speaker: you know, be taking different classes and going to different performances and then eventually doing competition.
Speaker: It was always part of my life.
Speaker: As I went through middle school and high school, there was a moment where I considered quitting and not dancing anymore.
Speaker: There was a few things that prevented me from doing that.
Speaker: Luckily, I had great parents who supported me and encouraged me to continue it.
Speaker: They saw that I had something special to offer to dance.
Speaker: So they encouraged me to just go one more year, like give it one more year, see how you feel.
Speaker: And also in that time frame, I met a really important person in my life named Anthony Russo, who was a tap dancer and was the son of the studio owner that I was studying at.
Speaker: So he came back from a tour and became my weekly tap teacher.
Speaker: At that time in my life was a very important role model in my life.
Speaker: I got to see a professional tap dancer like in the flesh for the first time.
Speaker: And he had so many great stories, was a great teacher and got me excited again about tap dance.
Speaker: He brought his intensive tap the map into the studio and I got to meet a lot of other professional tap dancers that way.
Speaker: And it just ignited the spark for me when I was in high school.
Speaker: And it was at that time when I decided I want to do this for a long time and potentially as a career.
Speaker: And then after graduating high school, I stuck around in St.
Speaker: Louis.
Speaker: I banded together with some other tap dancers in the area.
Speaker: We formed a company called the St.
Speaker: Louis Rhythm Collaborative.
Speaker: Just teaching classes, producing shows, doing as much as we can because St.
Speaker: Louis has such a rich history in tap dance with the festival that used to be there.
Speaker: So we wanted to re-energize the St.
Speaker: Louis scene for tap dance.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And we got to do a lot of stuff.
Speaker: I had so much fun with them.
Speaker: And then three years ago, like to this week almost, three years ago, I moved to New York and started pursuing a career here.
Speaker: And I'm loving every second of it.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Why were you thinking about quitting?
Speaker: It's, I think about this often.
Speaker: I think it was a mix of things.
Speaker: I think being in a small town in Missouri with some small-minded people, a boy at the time, a boy dancing was something that was uncommon.
Speaker: I was a lot of times the only boy at the dance studio.
Speaker: But then when I moved to Anthony Russo's mother's studio, Performing Arts Center in St.
Speaker: Charles, Missouri, there was a lot of guys.
Speaker: And
Speaker: We all stuck together and knew that we shared a love for dance.
Speaker: So I think it was just that kind of almost bullying type energy that was going on at school, getting picked on for being a dancer, not doing the common sports that all the other boys were doing at the time in that area.
Speaker: I think that was the main thing.
Speaker: There was probably a few other things, but I can't really pinpoint them.
Speaker: But that's the one that sticks out to me as the reason why I wanted to quit.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I'm glad you stuck with it.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: I look back and I'm so thankful that I did.
Speaker: I can't imagine what my life would be like if I had quit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's so important too to be able to see, I mean, we talk about this with any kind of representation, but to be able to see a pathway forward, you know, as you saw with, you know, with your mentors and then being able to see, oh, there are professional tap dancers here and guy tap dancers that I can emulate, their paths I can emulate maybe.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I've been following your Instagram and everything.
Speaker: You've been doing a lot of really interesting work transcribing like percussion rudiments onto your tap shoes which I think is just brilliant.
Speaker: And a great way to train.
Speaker: Where did you come up with that idea?
Speaker: Like how did you even think that, oh, this is something that I can use for tap and that it's an important thing to study?
Speaker: I've always been fascinated with the drums since a young age.
Speaker: I've always, the drums as an instrument have always, uh, been, been something that called, called to me.
Speaker: My dad was a drummer and, um, he, he was self-taught.
Speaker: He really just played for fun.
Speaker: Wasn't really playing professionally.
Speaker: Um, but we always had a drum set in the house.
Speaker: It was in the basement.
Speaker: I was pretty old, but it was also super cool.
Speaker: And so as a kid, whenever I felt curious, I could go down there and just
Speaker: play on the drums and eventually I started like, let me try to learn some basic drum patterns and try to play along with some songs that I enjoy listening to.
Speaker: And I think that gave me the drum bug, like actually getting to play it.
Speaker: And so from that point, I started just appreciating different drummers that I hear.
Speaker: Like if I heard on a song, if I liked how the drum sounded, I would research who it was and learn more about them, see what else they're playing on.
Speaker: Um, so that's, that's always been a part of my life.
Speaker: And then the first time I ever traveled on a plane and out of the state to another tap intensive.
Speaker: So the first time leaving Missouri to do a tap intensive was in 2016.
Speaker: I did Sarah Reisch's tap music project here in New York.
Speaker: And that experience.
Speaker: opened my mind up like, oh my gosh, what I'm doing with my feet is what I like hearing through drummers.
Speaker: And Sarah has an excellent program that teaches tap dancers about notating music and what the rhythms look like on paper versus just what they hear like.
Speaker: So, we get both ends of that spectrum.
Speaker: And learning how to do that, I like, I remember going home after that experience and just trying to transcribe what I
Speaker: what I was doing or transcribing what I heard other tap dancers doing.
Speaker: And it just became a fascination of mine.
Speaker: So that first intensive with Tap Music Project was probably the first thing that inspired me to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker: And as I continued studying with drummers and going to different intensives and learning about other musicians, I just wanted to know more.
Speaker: Something I've always been trying to do as an artist is to always stay curious.
Speaker: And if I have a question about something, I want to find the answer to it.
Speaker: And if I find that answer, then I want to find the next question and see what else I can learn about that.
Speaker: And just always going deeper.
Speaker: going to the next layer and all of the rudiments, like as tap, like we, we learned about Steve condos.
Speaker: We learned about the rudiments that he's created.
Speaker: And we, as tap dancers, we call our exercises rudiments.
Speaker: So it's like, okay.
Speaker: that's where we are like what are the drummer what do they mean by rudiments and then seeing their entire list of rudiments that like there's literally the 40 international drum percussion rudiments so it's like okay so these are what the drummer shed and there's also there's a ted reed book on syncopation that drummer is like so many drummers reference that book as a as a turning point in their education like shedding the ted reed book and that's something that also
Speaker: Sarah Rice talked about was the Ted Reed book.
Speaker: So I was starting to get music books and drum books and just looking at the rhythmic notation and then trying to put that into my tap dancing.
Speaker: And I think it's a great way just to expand your voice as an artist as a tap dancer.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: We learn steps in class.
Speaker: We learn combinations in class.
Speaker: But then to study the music side of it and to really understand what we're playing and know what it looks like on paper and being able to count it and visualize it as you're dancing it, that's a really important
Speaker: really valuable thing that I have learned.
Speaker: So, that's why I've studied, that's why I dove in and just love to continue going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker: I love that you share them too.
Speaker: I think it's so, so important because not everybody maybe has that, those experiences or interactions with other, other art forms, like with the music, with your dad.
Speaker: And, and so to share that and get other tap dancers who might follow you for other reasons, seeing and understanding, oh, there's another side to this that I can, another way I can come at it, I think is so important.
Speaker: And, and also, sorry, side note,
Speaker: I think one thing that I love about it is how much it prioritizes what you share prioritizes independent and solo practice.
Speaker: I talk about this a lot.
Speaker: He's like, you dancers.
Speaker: You just go and take class, take class, class, class, which I was very guilty of.
Speaker: Even when I was living in New York, I was just constantly taking class.
Speaker: And that's great.
Speaker: And there's so much value to that and working alongside people.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: I think what a lot of us, myself included, is missing in our journey is understanding and developing your own private practice and shed.
Speaker: And I think that what you share encourages that in so many ways.
Speaker: That's what I try to tell my students when I'm teaching them is,
Speaker: You can get a lot out of class, but you're going to get so much more if you take it home and study it more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you do the homework and you review it and you explore it in so many different ways.
Speaker: That's what I love doing.
Speaker: I love taking notes and then going home and whatever we talked about in class, just thinking about it further and practicing it more.
Speaker: So, I would agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the extra.
Speaker: Whatever you do is extra.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: This is a horrible analogy, but this is what I think about.
Speaker: If you have an airline credit card and you buy something with that credit card, you get points towards that airline.
Speaker: But if you buy something within that airline during a flight or you buy a plane ticket with that airline, the points are like you get two times or three times the points.
Speaker: That's how I feel about tap dance.
Speaker: If we get something from class and then we go home and study that same thing more, what you're going to get back from it is two, three times more.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: It's a weird way to think about it, but that's how I think about it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you know, solo practice pays in dividends, you know.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: You said you were talking about listening to drummers and discovering drummers and then researching them and finding out what else they were on and doing these things, which is something that, you know, musicians do all the time but I don't know many tap dancers who do that.
Speaker: Who is your favorite drummer?
Speaker: That's a hard question.
Speaker: I don't, I don't have a single favorite.
Speaker: I have many favorites, just like we, I, we have many favorite tap dancers.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, so I have many favorite drummers.
Speaker: Um, if I have to pinpoint the first drummer that really, really spoke to me in their playing, like when I heard them, I was like, wow, who is this?
Speaker: I need to figure out who this is.
Speaker: It would be Steve Jordan.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: From a young age.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I was a big, I still am a big fan of John Mayer and on John Mayer's Continuum album, Steve Jordan is playing the drums and there's a few live records that John Mayer has and Steve is playing on those as well.
Speaker: And some of the intros, they just let Steve like eight bars, 16 bars, just Steve holding a really deep pocket.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, this is like, this feels so good.
Speaker: Like I just want, I just want to sit in this for a while.
Speaker: And Steve Jordan was the first one that I realized was like, oh, here's this drummer.
Speaker: Let me look at the CD.
Speaker: Let me look at the credits.
Speaker: Who's the drummer?
Speaker: Okay, Steve Jordan.
Speaker: He was the first one.
Speaker: So he's always a fan of mine.
Speaker: I love how he plays.
Speaker: From there, so many drummers.
Speaker: Is there somebody that you're currently studying or hoping to dive into next?
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I love how Nate Smith plays.
Speaker: I'm sure we'll get into this, but the album I released was heavily inspired by his concept of solo drum albums.
Speaker: He has two albums called Pocket Change and his playing and how he approaches different grooves and lets the groove be the song.
Speaker: It doesn't really stray from that.
Speaker: He explores everything in the context of that groove and sees how far he can go within it.
Speaker: That's something that really...
Speaker: I was drawn to as a tap dancer.
Speaker: So definitely, definitely Nate Smith is an influence.
Speaker: Um, I've been very fortunate to study with a jazz drummer named Ulysses Owens Jr. Okay.
Speaker: He's been, uh, he's invited me to a few different projects of his, and he's one of the best jazz musicians on the scene right now.
Speaker: So to be up close and personal with him,
Speaker: And just to hear a jazz drummer of his caliber and get to play with a jazz drummer of his caliber has been super valuable to me.
Speaker: So, I would have to round out my three with those guys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: You actually answered the next question I had.
Speaker: Just were you studying with drummers?
Speaker: And obviously, you are.
Speaker: When did you start studying with drummers?
Speaker: Studying with drummers had to have started, I think before I realized I was studying with drummers because different intensives and things like that, like Anthony, my teacher, we would have a cajon in the studio and he would accompany us doing an exercise on the cajon.
Speaker: So, I think that was probably my very first interaction playing with a drummer, a percussionist.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Um, but then at festivals, there's, there's drummers playing in the band.
Speaker: If you do a residency, you get to play with the live band and there's a drummer there.
Speaker: Um, but as I graduated high school and I'm, and I started working with the St.
Speaker: Louis rhythm collaborative, we started producing our own shows, having, having musicians come into the room and playing live for us.
Speaker: And that's, that's when I got a little bit more intimate experience with, with a drummer named Scotty.
Speaker: I'm in, he works with the, he works with the company still.
Speaker: And he was so game to come in and work with us and to work out arrangements, work out forms of the tunes that we were working, setting up stop time sections for us and songs.
Speaker: Like he was really had a hands-on experience with him with all the music.
Speaker: And he also agreed to be part of our intensives.
Speaker: So we had a class about working with the drummer and trading and musicality, all that good stuff.
Speaker: So I would say that was my first experiences with studying with the drummer.
Speaker: kind of led into it, but we can, um, we can talk a little bit about your album now, if that's okay.
Speaker: I'd love to pick your brain about it.
Speaker: Um, we, uh, I said this before on a different episode, but we just recorded, um, the intro for the podcast.
Speaker: And that was my first ever experience ever recording my taps in any way, shape or form.
Speaker: It was so humbling.
Speaker: And I learned so much from the very short, tiny process of just recording this one tiny little tune that Adam wrote for us.
Speaker: So I'd love to just like pick your brain about number one, what where did the idea of creating a
Speaker: This tap only album came from, I know you had mentioned one of the drummers that inspired you.
Speaker: And then also, why do you feel like it's important to have a recording that you put out there in the world versus just to continue on your own solo practice?
Speaker: First, I want to say, I told you guys I listened to the podcast on the plane yesterday and I love the intro.
Speaker: So I think you guys are great.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I was wondering who it was.
Speaker: So I'm happy to hear that it was you.
Speaker: But the inspiration for the album, like I mentioned, I was inspired by a collection of solo drum albums.
Speaker: I found Nate Smith's first, his Pocket Change One album.
Speaker: And if anyone who is listening hasn't heard the Pocket Change albums, whoa, go check it out.
Speaker: It's so great.
Speaker: And it's so cool to hear the drums in that way.
Speaker: It's not just, it doesn't sound like a backing track.
Speaker: Sometimes a backing track is just a very basic drum beat, but Nate goes crazy on the drums and really explores the
Speaker: the capabilities of the drum set.
Speaker: There's an interview he does where he mentions that the drums are an orchestra and I agree, I agree fully.
Speaker: And it's made me think about the tap shoes in a different way.
Speaker: Like we're not just toes and heels.
Speaker: There's a whole spectrum that we have within those four plates of metal that we have.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But yeah, his albums were a big inspiration.
Speaker: I also found Joe Jones has a solo drum album called The Drums.
Speaker: And his is interesting because he speaks a lot in it.
Speaker: He talks about what he's going to play before he plays it.
Speaker: And there's actually a section where he talks about a few tap dancers.
Speaker: And he plays in the style that they dance.
Speaker: So, when I heard that, that also opened my mind up and gave me ideas for this album.
Speaker: Um, a couple of others, Ari Onig, who's a drummer based here in New York city.
Speaker: He has a solo album monster.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: But yeah, his, something about his album that I liked is he was playing jazz standards on, on his drums.
Speaker: So you can hear the tune of Nardy's, you can hear it on his drums and it's, it's so brilliant.
Speaker: Um, so that's what inspired me to do Billy's bounce on mine.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Love that, by the way.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker: Yeah, those albums were some big influences.
Speaker: Max Roach has Drums Unlimited, where he has some solo drum tracks on there.
Speaker: I am just obsessed with...
Speaker: the idea of percussion compositions, percussion ensembles and drum sets being the composition, being the song.
Speaker: Not that I don't like other elements of composition and melody and harmony, all that stuff.
Speaker: I love those things too.
Speaker: But I think at this stage of my life, the percussion side of things is calling to me.
Speaker: So, I'm exploring it.
Speaker: And I think that's another reason why I wanted to put the album out to answer the second part of the question is,
Speaker: This is where I am at in my life.
Speaker: And I wanted to have something to document where I'm at, what I'm studying, and let this be a starting point.
Speaker: I thought about it a lot.
Speaker: I don't want the album to be a finishing point.
Speaker: I'm not done exploring it.
Speaker: This is the beginning of exploring this whole idea of tap dance being a percussion instrument and just exploring what is capable within the tap shoes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So hoping for more albums in the future or more work with live, maybe live productions or live shows of just the tapping drums.
Speaker: What are your thoughts of where do you go from here?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: Still exploring.
Speaker: There's more work to be done before another album.
Speaker: That's for sure.
Speaker: This album definitely showed me that
Speaker: I can go for, I can explore further.
Speaker: There's more to be explored and there's also much more to learn in terms of the production aspect, how to record taps, which is, it's always a never ending battle.
Speaker: I feel like recording tap shoes and recording tap dance.
Speaker: Um, so I need to, I need to spend some time experimenting and exploring, doing a lot of trial and error, learning more about sound production because I really, I came into it with
Speaker: very minimal, if not zero experience in sound production and what that's like.
Speaker: So, this showed me that I have a lot to go, a lot to learn and so much further to go.
Speaker: Yeah, we all do.
Speaker: Speaking, since you brought it up, give me the nitty gritty.
Speaker: Give me the on the recording process.
Speaker: All the nerdy things.
Speaker: Mic placement, like what kind of mics did you use?
Speaker: How do you record tabs?
Speaker: I wish I had the full nitty-gritty details.
Speaker: I had a wonderful sound engineer, recording engineer named Sara Galdez out of a studio in the West Village called Cynthia Studio.
Speaker: She was my anchor and my support throughout this whole process because like I said, I had very minimal experience in recording.
Speaker: I just knew that I wanted to record and I knew I needed somebody that understood percussion.
Speaker: She is a drummer herself.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So she knew that I wanted it to be
Speaker: recorded like a drum set.
Speaker: So we had a total of, let me think, I think we had seven microphones total around the board.
Speaker: I know we definitely had a bass drum microphone in there to try to capture the low end of the taps.
Speaker: And then we had a couple other microphones to get the other ranges of the mics.
Speaker: And then I was also wearing DeWitt's DeWitt right tap mics.
Speaker: I was wearing those on the shoes as well.
Speaker: Shout out DeWitt.
Speaker: And
Speaker: When we did the mix, yeah, we had the six channels to play with and just tried to get the best mix as possible.
Speaker: But I can tell you mic placement, there was two behind me, two in front of me, one on the side, and then the two I was wearing.
Speaker: And there's one video that will eventually be released.
Speaker: You'll see I kick one of them.
Speaker: I was kicking them quite often.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: They were very close because we needed them close to get as intimate of a sound as possible.
Speaker: And that's the thing, too.
Speaker: There's so many tap albums that already exist, and some of them sound great, and some of them do not sound great.
Speaker: It's so tough to record tap.
Speaker: So, I told Sarah, I was like, I want to get as intimate,
Speaker: of a sound as possible.
Speaker: I want them to feel like they're in the room with us and that they can hear this.
Speaker: So that was the, that was the setup that we had.
Speaker: Were you involved in the mixing process at all or?
Speaker: To be honest, not as much as I would have liked.
Speaker: The process we were using is Sarah would mix, send it to me, I would give notes.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: I would send the notes back, do some edits, send it back and we just went back and forth quite a few times.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But just with scheduling and, you know, we were both pretty busy at the time.
Speaker: Sarah was going into...
Speaker: was going into tax season because we actually met at a tax firm.
Speaker: We were both working remotely doing taxes for people.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I recorded in March.
Speaker: So going into April, it was very busy at that time.
Speaker: So it was also hard with that.
Speaker: I didn't even think to like, oh, I want to be in the room and like be hearing it.
Speaker: I didn't.
Speaker: That's not something I really thought about.
Speaker: So, I'm glad that I did this because now I know I want to be in the room.
Speaker: I want to learn more about this.
Speaker: I want to have more input.
Speaker: I want to like all the sliders, all the levels.
Speaker: I want to play with every single one.
Speaker: What does this one do?
Speaker: Okay, what does this one do if we turn it all the way up?
Speaker: But the process we had was send it, give notes and send it back.
Speaker: And then it was the same for the mastering process as well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Did you feel like the setup that you had inhibited sounds that you would have been able to create had you had the space without the microphones, like space to move and travel?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The space was an issue.
Speaker: It was a lot smaller of a space and I wasn't able to dance as naturally as I would have wanted to because I was focusing on staying in a small space so I didn't hit the mics.
Speaker: I was hearing myself in the headphones.
Speaker: I was being really conscious about just the sound that this album is not about the visual aspect of tap dance.
Speaker: It's all just about the sound.
Speaker: Even though we had some videos made, I wanted the videos to capture that process, like just focusing on sound and instrumentation.
Speaker: But I was definitely inhibited.
Speaker: So, the next thing I want to explore is how can we get a larger space to record but still have that intimacy of the microphones to be really close and get as much sound as possible.
Speaker: That's tricky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very tricky.
Speaker: Yeah, I wonder how this process now of having to really, really focus on that because nobody can see you when you're listening to the album, how that's affected your playing or dancing now that...
Speaker: you're on the other side of that.
Speaker: Do you find yourself hold holding back more and focusing on that?
Speaker: Or do you now more appreciate the freedom to move and not have to worry about that?
Speaker: Like, where has that kind of guided you?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: I, in my like reflection, since, since we've released,
Speaker: I would say I've been preparing for this album, composing the music and rehearsing everything for about a year and a half.
Speaker: So for a year and a half, I've been dancing on the board that I recorded just to get comfy with it and just in that confined space and thinking about the
Speaker: the music more so than the movement.
Speaker: And I think because of that, I'm not inclined to move as much when I dance, which I used to, I love using space.
Speaker: And I think this has to use that word inhibited, I'm more staying stationary.
Speaker: And I think that's just the nature of, because of what I've been practicing, whatever we practice, we're going to become like, we're going to, we're going to do that more.
Speaker: Um, so now that this is fully complete, um,
Speaker: I want to get back to exploring space because that's the beautiful thing about tap dance, it's music and it's movement.
Speaker: So it was nice to hone in on just one aspect of it, just the audio part of it.
Speaker: But as a dancer, I need to remember it's about the presentation.
Speaker: It's about the movement as well.
Speaker: I'm excited to get back into that idea.
Speaker: And something else I want to do with these compositions is maybe they can be adapted for a live performance.
Speaker: And the musical components can still be there, but add a movement element, add some choreography or anything like that that can bring the song more to life, not just the audio experience, but also audio and visual.
Speaker: You had mentioned that you heard yourself, you were listening to yourself in your headphones.
Speaker: Did you have like a click track going too or what was happening?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes to a click track except for the final track.
Speaker: The final track is called Final Thoughts.
Speaker: We had the story behind that track is we had like, I think 10 to 15 minutes left of the studio.
Speaker: And we're like, well, we've done everything.
Speaker: Let's...
Speaker: Let's plug it in.
Speaker: Let's see what happens.
Speaker: And so that one I went with no click.
Speaker: And I just pulled inspiration from everything we've recorded before.
Speaker: And it's kind of a you'll hear like little pieces of each track come into my improvisation.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So except for that final track, all the other ones were a click track.
Speaker: That was an experience in its own.
Speaker: having just that constant click, like letting it be loud enough to where I can hear the click, but also being able to hear the taps that I'm producing at the same time.
Speaker: And it was also a thing because the mics were so hot that sometimes the click from the headphones were getting into the mics.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: It's like, now, okay, we got to turn the click track down a little bit.
Speaker: It's so hard to hear over your dancing.
Speaker: It's so hard.
Speaker: And that's, that's another thing I learned too, that I wanted to mention.
Speaker: I absolutely danced too heavy, too loud.
Speaker: When I was, when I was doing my research on recording percussion and drums, I,
Speaker: A lot of what I was learning is the softer you play, the better.
Speaker: It's going to sound better if it's softer.
Speaker: The mix and the process of putting all the different mic mixtures together is going to be better if it's a softer play.
Speaker: And I think because of my dancing, I was nervous.
Speaker: It was my first time doing it.
Speaker: I didn't, I haven't had this experience before.
Speaker: I was just dancing too heavy.
Speaker: And, um, that inhibited some of the, some of the sound qualities that we could have had.
Speaker: Um, so again, that that's what I love about this album is it was a huge learning experience and I'm happy that I did it and I'm happy with everything that I learned throughout of it.
Speaker: Did you just do it in all in one take, like one studio session?
Speaker: It was two studio sessions.
Speaker: We did it over two days.
Speaker: The first day was just tracking audio for those songs.
Speaker: I did about half of the songs the first day.
Speaker: The second day, those were the ones that I knew I wanted to have filmed.
Speaker: So I brought in a videographer the second day.
Speaker: And the second day was mostly my own compositions that I wanted to have documented.
Speaker: So the second day was the other half with the video aspect.
Speaker: This is the Relative Rhythms podcast, and you're listening to our conversation with Tommy Wasuta.
Speaker: This podcast is a labor of love, and we are currently supported entirely by our listeners.
Speaker: If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to our Patreon.
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Speaker: You can also support us by rating and leaving us a review wherever you are listening, and by following us on all the socials at relative rhythms.
Speaker: Thank you to all of our current Patreon supporters.
Speaker: We are deeply grateful.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in, and now back to our conversation with Tommy.
Speaker: Outside of this album, obviously, you composed like all these grooves and the percussion.
Speaker: Have you dabbled in like composing like music at all?
Speaker: Like outside of the percussion aspect?
Speaker: I have not, but I very much want to.
Speaker: It's another thing to learn.
Speaker: And I would love to explore these compositions that I made.
Speaker: I would love to explore adding more to them.
Speaker: I think they sound, I like how they sound now, but I can only imagine what else could be added to enhance them.
Speaker: So, it's another thing that I learned, another reminder of something to work on post this album.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In New York, I'm sure you meet a lot of musicians.
Speaker: Are you playing with a lot of musicians?
Speaker: Are you going out and going to jams at all or what?
Speaker: Yeah, different gigs.
Speaker: I'll work with different musicians and I'll go to jam sessions which is always a lot of fun.
Speaker: I haven't lately.
Speaker: this, this album has taken a lot of time away and all the things that come with that.
Speaker: Um, but I recently went, I went to my first jam session since releasing and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: Um, so I, I do enjoy it.
Speaker: Uh, still get nervous just as much as the first time when I did it.
Speaker: Um, it's so good to hear.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Like I had to remind myself.
Speaker: I was like, why am I, why am I so nervous?
Speaker: But yeah, it's always, it's always going to be like that.
Speaker: And that's, that's kind of how it should be.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Not nervous in a bad way.
Speaker: It's good nerves.
Speaker: Like it means I'm excited to be there and I'm about to be vulnerable and play and just share my craft.
Speaker: Can you talk a little bit about how your experience going into jam sessions as a tap dancer are?
Speaker: Do you go to places that tap dancers often are present or are you usually kind of the sole tap dancer there?
Speaker: How's that experience for you?
Speaker: I mean, there's different sessions that are tailored for different things.
Speaker: There are sessions in New York that are for tap dancers.
Speaker: Like a tap dancer will be hosting or just a group of tap dancers plan to go.
Speaker: And there's a whole collection there.
Speaker: But that's the thing about New York.
Speaker: I think a tap dancer has been in every club at every jam session in some way.
Speaker: So I'm absolutely not like paving the way and doing anything new.
Speaker: It's like what I'm doing has been done.
Speaker: But sometimes I'll be the only tap dancer, but they'll be like, oh, do you know this person?
Speaker: Do you know this person?
Speaker: No, this person was just here last week.
Speaker: That's what's cool about New York is people know.
Speaker: People know what's going on with tap.
Speaker: They know the community.
Speaker: And that's been really inspiring.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's great for me to be there and to be in those environments and learning that of all these other people who have been there before.
Speaker: So it's fun to put myself in that situation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like obviously, living in New York with, you know, you can find anything and everything.
Speaker: It's a massive, especially in the arts, massive community.
Speaker: How long did it like coming from your hometown, coming from, you know, very few places have what New York has as far as like...
Speaker: opportunities to learn and interact with other people who do the same thing as you do.
Speaker: Um, how long did it take you to like figure out or just get the, be brave enough to put yourself out there into the like the jam sessions and things like that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I had that experience.
Speaker: Very fortunately, I had that experience before moving.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, when I moved here, I was already used to going to sessions.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's a great session in St.
Speaker: Louis hosted by the Kransberg Arts Foundation and by a great bass player named Bob DeBoo.
Speaker: And that was the first jam session that I went to as a tap dancer ever.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And what I remember, and this will always stick with me, is I walked in.
Speaker: I didn't know anyone.
Speaker: I didn't know what the flow was like.
Speaker: I didn't know what the vibe was like.
Speaker: And Bob immediately came up to me, introduced himself, and said, oh, you're a tap dancer.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Get up there whenever you're ready.
Speaker: Whenever you feel comfortable, we'll get you up there.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: He just made me feel so welcomed and supported.
Speaker: And that's, that's, that is huge, especially for a musician who's never done it before.
Speaker: It's always, it's always great to have that support.
Speaker: Uh, so luckily I was able to go to that session.
Speaker: I went there for a number of years living in St.
Speaker: Louis and got more comfortable, got better as a musician, being able to sit in, was learning more about jazz standards at the time.
Speaker: growing my collection of tunes that I know and just stretching and learning all throughout.
Speaker: I can pinpoint different sessions where I learn different things that still stick with me to this day.
Speaker: A short example, there was...
Speaker: It's always awkward as a tap dance when you put your board down.
Speaker: And it's like, when you're done soloing, do you step off the stage?
Speaker: Do you stay there?
Speaker: If it's a small stage, it can be kind of tight.
Speaker: So you kind of want to get out of the way.
Speaker: But then you don't want anyone walking over your board or tripping on it.
Speaker: That's definitely a thing too.
Speaker: So I remember I had solos and I finished and I just, I decided to stay there.
Speaker: But there was an instrumentalist, a horn player behind me.
Speaker: who was soloing and I didn't get out of the way.
Speaker: And he like Bob, the host, like very awesomely.
Speaker: I thank him so much for this, uh, came up to me.
Speaker: He's like, give him some space.
Speaker: Like let's get off stage.
Speaker: And then I, so I was like, okay, I moved my board and I stepped off.
Speaker: So now I'm always aware to this day.
Speaker: I'm always aware where I am on the bandstand, making sure I'm not blocking anybody.
Speaker: We don't ever want to, don't ever want to do that.
Speaker: And I'm just aware of the space that I'm in when I'm dancing.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: I say that story to say I learned some great things in St.
Speaker: Louis before moving to New York that made me feel comfortable and ready to come onto the scene here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: When did you realize that that was something that you could do or that tap was a part of that history, that you should be in these spaces?
Speaker: It seems like very few tap dancers are aware of the shared history of jazz and tap and even fewer are...
Speaker: interested in like learning about it in this way.
Speaker: So, where did this, how did you come to it?
Speaker: Like, I'm sure you didn't just wake up one day and said, I want to go to a jam session.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Maybe you did.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I did not.
Speaker: I did not do that.
Speaker: I think it started when I was studying at my dance studio.
Speaker: I was very fortunate to have great teachers.
Speaker: Like I mentioned Anthony Russo earlier.
Speaker: Different events and stuff like that.
Speaker: Like if he brought his intensive into the studio for the one weekend a year that he did.
Speaker: Um, sometimes there'd be a Friday night jam and sometimes it was recorded music, like just a tap jam.
Speaker: Um, but sometimes he would bring a band in.
Speaker: So that was my first, that was my first experience working with a band that wasn't necessarily a jazz band, but it was a band nonetheless.
Speaker: And I had, I had that experience and, um, it was a, it was a cultivated space that encouraged us to, to get up and do it and experience it.
Speaker: Um, then I also had a great teacher named Maria majors, uh, also in Missouri who she spends, she spends a year in New York with Manhattan tap and studying with Heather Cornell.
Speaker: So she has a wealth of knowledge that she shared with us as students.
Speaker: And she, yeah, she opens up my world to, uh,
Speaker: like the world of the St.
Speaker: Louis TAF festival.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember my first year there with her, she brought, she brought in a stack of papers and it was the registration form for the St.
Speaker: Louis TAF festival.
Speaker: And she gave it to all of us and she sent us home with it.
Speaker: And I brought it home and my mom signed me up like, you're doing all 25 classes for the entire week.
Speaker: I was like, okay.
Speaker: And my feet fell off at the end of the week.
Speaker: I was dead, but it was the best experience.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: At the festival too, they talk a lot about jams.
Speaker: They talk a lot about the shared history between jazz and tap.
Speaker: And of course, there's the show at the end of the week at the festival.
Speaker: So, I got to see that in action.
Speaker: I got to see the jazz band play with the tap dancers and work together in that way.
Speaker: So, that was when I first realized.
Speaker: these go together and I'm so happy I had the teachers and the experiences that I did because I did learn it at a pretty young age.
Speaker: And so now you're on the other side and you're teaching and passing on this wealth of knowledge that you've accumulated.
Speaker: What do you try to impart to your students and encourage in their personal practice?
Speaker: When I'm teaching teaching
Speaker: especially at somewhere like Steps where it's a drop-in class, I tend to bring in my curiosities and the current things I'm working on.
Speaker: So, if I'm trying to develop an exercise for a specific, I don't know, it has a specific motive.
Speaker: If I want it to be in an odd meter or I want it to accent different notes in different places, like whatever I want the exercise to be, I'll bring it into the room and let like, I'll tell them like, this is something I'm developing and something I'm working on.
Speaker: And they get to be a part of that process.
Speaker: And I feel that dancers like that.
Speaker: They like to see something being created in real time.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: As opposed to like, this is an exercise, let's do it.
Speaker: That's great too.
Speaker: It's great to have an exercise that's complete.
Speaker: I always have exercises ready to go to teach, but it's also great to tell them what I'm wanting to do, what my idea is and where I want to get to, and then working on it in the room to get there.
Speaker: And it's always exciting when it finally does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When we finally get somewhere.
Speaker: that it works at least.
Speaker: So I always encourage curiosity in that way.
Speaker: I let them know that I'm curious about this.
Speaker: And sometimes we'll take that exercise that we discover and I give them a prompt to change it or to make it their own.
Speaker: And so they can explore on their own in some way.
Speaker: i'm also i'm always using i'm always using jazz music whenever i can i'm trying to use odd meters as much as i can just to get just to get dancers familiar with that because i know odd meters especially is something that i continue to struggle with but especially as a as a younger dancer um so it's it's all it's all those things that i those things that i know as my weaknesses trying to teach those and then also breeding curiosity and letting them explore because
Speaker: I was just thinking about this yesterday.
Speaker: Tap dance demands individuality.
Speaker: It demands exploration and it demands patience, like all of those things.
Speaker: And if you can do, if you can do all those things or at least a couple of them, you're going to have such a fun experience and it's going to, it's going to teach you so many things about yourself, but then it's also about expanding the art form, which I know that's always the goal is to continue growing the art form and feeding into it and giving back to it.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: You were talking about learning tunes, like expanding your songbook, your repertoire of like jazz standards.
Speaker: How do you go about that as a tap dancer?
Speaker: And maybe why do you think that's even important for a tap dancer to learn?
Speaker: I think I expanded my book, we could say, like the songs that I know.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: A great way is just being in class.
Speaker: And if a teacher chooses a specific song to work with, then obviously you're going to spend an hour or so working with that tune.
Speaker: Um, so that's, I love learning tunes that way because I get to really get to know the tune very well and also learn choreography to it.
Speaker: Um, that's a great way to, to learn it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Like being at a session, if I don't know the tune, like I hear them call the tune, but I don't know it.
Speaker: I won't dance on it.
Speaker: But then I'm like, OK, and let me write this down.
Speaker: Oh, I'll go to Spotify and save it right then.
Speaker: So then I can go back and listen to it.
Speaker: Those are two big ways that I'm learning tunes.
Speaker: Also watching footage, seeing the master tap dancers, like what tune are they dancing to?
Speaker: And then that's just another great way to get it into the body.
Speaker: There's excellent Spotify playlists out there of like
Speaker: great jazz standards.
Speaker: So I'll dive into those sometimes and see what's been added or see where the holes in my knowledge are to make sure I'm knowing tunes.
Speaker: And then there's a great book.
Speaker: I I'm forgetting the author, but I think it's called the jazz standards, I think is literally what the book is called.
Speaker: And it's like a hundred, it's like a hundred jazz standards and it gives you a backstory on the tune and it gives you a list of selected recordings to check out.
Speaker: Um, so I remember reading through that book as well, but I think
Speaker: Something that I love doing with really learning a tune is hearing as many different versions as possible, just like that book is provided.
Speaker: So, if I have a couple jazz artists that I like listening to, I'll find different albums that they released and pick out the standards and listen to their version of that standard.
Speaker: And I'll do that with a collection of artists, so I'm getting multiple versions.
Speaker: When you, so you learned your standard, you're going to go, you're going to sit in at a, you know, at a session or something like that.
Speaker: How are you approaching your comping and how are you approaching your soloing?
Speaker: Are you thinking, I know this is maybe two separate questions, but are you thinking more melodically or are you thinking more as a percussionist?
Speaker: I think it changes.
Speaker: It changes on where I'm at in the tune.
Speaker: If I'm playing the head, I'm thinking melodically, I'm playing the head.
Speaker: And even depending on where the solos line up, if I'm taking one of the first solos, sometimes that melody is still really driving those solos.
Speaker: So I'll think melodically there as well, and I'll try to mark the form as best as I can.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: But sometimes, usually at the later end of the solos, that's when you get your bass and your drum solo.
Speaker: So going from those instruments, especially after a drum solo, I'm thinking...
Speaker: less melodically and more more groove and oriented more percussion based so yeah it kind of falls it depends on where i fall within the lineup and that's always a never-ending question where does the tap dancer go where do we belong where do we belong um i in my opinion on that question if the tap dancer calls the tune tap dancer takes the first solo that's my opinion um if not i try to find my way
Speaker: before bass and drums.
Speaker: I like to go around like on that end of it.
Speaker: So yeah, around the piano, bass drums, like after the horns.
Speaker: And so to address your second question, comping is a very difficult thing as a tap dancer because again, where do we belong?
Speaker: How do we approach it?
Speaker: There's so many different ways to approach it.
Speaker: I have lately,
Speaker: Specifically in a jam setting, I have a perch comping like a horn player.
Speaker: If I do my solo and then I get off, I don't add any additional comping to it.
Speaker: Except if I'm trading with a drummer,
Speaker: then I'll hold time with them as well.
Speaker: But very sparse, very little.
Speaker: Some musicians are pretty picky about the comping that they get, especially from a tap dancer.
Speaker: Just because of our instrument, it can be louder and it can cut through the sound.
Speaker: So I'm always conscious about my volume and how many notes I'm playing.
Speaker: If I'm comping, it's very minimal, very
Speaker: very held back but still supportive, other times I just get off stage and I don't hold anything while everyone else solos.
Speaker: That goes back to the conversation too about the stages.
Speaker: Like sometimes the stages are so small, there's not room for me to sit up there and comp.
Speaker: So, I have to do my solo and get off.
Speaker: So, it also depends on the environment that we're in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you experimented with like drummer-less groups?
Speaker: Like at you being the sole percussionist?
Speaker: I would say never at a jam session have I experienced that.
Speaker: Um, but I did, I did spend a week at a jazz camp called jazz camp West in California in the summer of 2023.
Speaker: And the artistic director of that camp is our Alison Miller, who's an excellent, excellent drummer.
Speaker: And she has a history of working with tap dancers.
Speaker: She's so welcoming.
Speaker: Her newest record features tap dancers and the live show features tap dance.
Speaker: So since I was there, she purposely put me into an ensemble without a drummer.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So it was my job to be the sole percussionist.
Speaker: And that's where I learned about the importance of really...
Speaker: marking the form even when comping, like just giving that support to the soloist so they know that they know where they're at within the form.
Speaker: That's also when I learned about the term dropping bombs as the drummers do.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, like that's because I've heard that.
Speaker: I've heard drummers do that in recordings, just like adding those really quick accents or those fills at the end of forms.
Speaker: So, yeah, it just opened up my mind.
Speaker: to being a sit back and supportive
Speaker: component as opposed to a solo where you were used to soloing and doing all of our crazy stuff that we do.
Speaker: So it's a sit back and really just think about groove and holding time and supporting the musicians.
Speaker: That was a great experience.
Speaker: And that's where on the the drum shoes album, there's a song called Spangling.
Speaker: And Spangling is a term that I learned at that camp from Alice Miller and then the artist in residence that year was Ulysses Owens Jr. And they were using that term like
Speaker: It's just rolled off their tongue.
Speaker: And I remember the first time they said it, I was like spang-a-ling.
Speaker: And it like immediately clicked.
Speaker: I was like spang-a-ling, spang-a-ling on the hi-hat.
Speaker: So like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker: So yeah, spang-a-ling is a term for that swing rhythm.
Speaker: I was doing a lot of spang-a-ling as the soul percussionist.
Speaker: But yeah, that was my first experience as a soul percussionist.
Speaker: I haven't had many since then.
Speaker: But it was very valuable.
Speaker: It's a very big like mindset shift like your role completely changes from a soloist to an accompanist.
Speaker: Was that hard to kind of figure out?
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: The hardest thing for me was not losing the foundational downbeat.
Speaker: What I mean is
Speaker: A lot of times at a session, I want to listen.
Speaker: Like I'm listening to the soloist.
Speaker: I'm hearing what they say.
Speaker: But I feel like when I'm in that and when I'm in the setting where I'm the sole percussionist or I'm in place of the drummer, I can't do that as much.
Speaker: I have to be more focused on keeping the time.
Speaker: Still responding to what they're playing, but also being locked in with the bass player, making sure that we're on the same wavelength and that we're locked in together.
Speaker: So that was also my first experience.
Speaker: putting my ear from the soloist and like shifting it over to the bass player and like making sure we're, we're in that together because we never, never want to be off of the bass player.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a cool experience, though.
Speaker: I feel like we don't, like, as you said, we don't, as top dancers, get that experience very often unless we're curating it for ourselves, like creating a band around us or, you know, heading a band or something like that.
Speaker: So that's cool that you got to be in an educational setting where that was encouraged by from kind of from the top down.
Speaker: So that's really, really cool.
Speaker: I wonder if there's...
Speaker: having had that experience, are there, have there been opportunities that you've either created for yourself or, you
Speaker: curated for either your students or friends of yours to, to continue that exploration of being, of being like the sole percussionist.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or maybe that's something you're like, that was great.
Speaker: And I'm done with that now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I haven't curated anything since, since then, I guess this album, I was so percussionist, but I was also the only one on it.
Speaker: But yeah, I have been exploring a lot, especially in a class setting with students, um,
Speaker: having half of the room hold down a groove and the other half gets to improvise or they're doing something else.
Speaker: Just giving students the responsibility like this is your groove and you have to hold it because there's going to be other things going on and we all need to be solid in our track to make sure that it all sounds good together.
Speaker: Because that's still for me a hard thing to do to turn inward and hold down my groove while other things are going on.
Speaker: It's like a super fine line between
Speaker: blocking out the other tracks, but also listening to them to know where they're at.
Speaker: And Sandra actually just told me something that Heather Cornell had told her is you want to hear yourself, but feel the other person.
Speaker: And so, that's something I need to meditate on because, yeah, we need to make sure we're locked into ourselves, but we want to feel what the other people are doing.
Speaker: So, we're still leaving the space, whatever the group we're doing.
Speaker: all of those musical components are falling in line where they need to be.
Speaker: But I am excited to explore that idea more, being a soul percussionist but then I also love playing with drummers.
Speaker: So, I want to keep it balanced.
Speaker: Are there any plans to start your own group?
Speaker: Maybe not at the moment, though.
Speaker: I still feel I'm pretty early in this exploration.
Speaker: So I'm going to see what the world calls for me.
Speaker: But I'm not hearing that call right now.
Speaker: since we are so lucky to have had this conversation with you today so soon after your album release, Tommy, do you have plans or are there ways that our listeners can come out and support you or are you doing some sort of album tour or anything like that, that they can, or just listen to you a lot on Spotify?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's no tour, no, no tour happening.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: If anyone wants to support streaming the album anywhere that they stream music, they can.
Speaker: I'm also, I have physical CDs if anyone wants a museum piece and wants to reach out to me and get a physical CD.
Speaker: They can do that through my website or through Instagram.
Speaker: They can send me a message.
Speaker: Another way to support, this hasn't been announced yet, but I wanted to use the podcast to announce it because I think the book will be announced when the podcast is released, but I wrote this book.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: It's going to be a transcription of seven of the recordings from the album.
Speaker: So they'll get that is awesome.
Speaker: A little blurb, a little blurb about your song and then also a transcription for most of them.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: Send it this way.
Speaker: So tell me, how do I get one?
Speaker: So yeah, by the time this is released, it should be available on my website.
Speaker: There'll be a direct link that you can buy.
Speaker: So whoever would like to support in that way, the book was a very time consuming, tedious task of transcribing my own tap dancing.
Speaker: But if anyone is interested in seeing that, that'll be a huge support.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So which came first?
Speaker: Did you choreograph it or compose it and then transcribe it?
Speaker: Or did you do it simultaneously?
Speaker: Or did you like visualize it and then create it on your body?
Speaker: How was your process?
Speaker: Really quick.
Speaker: It's a mix.
Speaker: It depends on each tune.
Speaker: Each tune is different.
Speaker: Some of them I composed like in 2022.
Speaker: I just didn't know it.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then when the, when the idea of the album came, I was like, Oh, I liked what I did with that.
Speaker: And I revisited.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Some of them, some of them, I had a foundational groove, um, like the song pretty shuffle.
Speaker: It's a, it's based off the pretty shuffle from Bernard pretty pretty.
Speaker: And so I'm, I'm playing that triply groove.
Speaker: And then I use that as a launch pad to then explore and improvise.
Speaker: And then some of them are completely improvised.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, it's a mix.
Speaker: It depends on the tune, which came first.
Speaker: But the book, I do talk about each tune and the creation of them.
Speaker: So, if anyone is interested in learning about each tune in that way, they can find that in the book.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Tommy, thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: This was a blast.
Speaker: This was my first podcast I've ever done.
Speaker: So, thank you for being my first podcast.
Speaker: You've been listening to our conversation with Tommy Wasuda.
Speaker: You can find more about Tommy and purchase his book and album on his website, TommyWasuda.com.
Speaker: That's W-A-S-I-U-T-A.
Speaker: And follow him on the socials at Tommy Wasuda.
Speaker: If you liked our conversation today, please follow and leave a rating or review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: And if you'd like to support our work, you can join us at patreon.com slash relative rhythms, where you can find all our uncut interviews as well as extra content.
Speaker: Our opening theme for The Love of It was composed by Adam.
Speaker: Our mid-roll music was Spang-a-Lang.
Speaker: And our outro music is St.
Speaker: Charles, both off of Tommy's new album, Drum Shoes.
Speaker: Don't forget to follow us on all the socials at Relative Rhythms and feel free to send us a message through our website, RelativeRhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next episode.
