This tune is one of the RoR basics. Often simply called “Karla”.
It sounds a bit, as the name implies, like machinegun-fire. As the Breaks have steady drum rolls in them, it’s important to aim for a steady even roll. Although the temptation is to play as fast as you can, you should try to be just in time (highlighting the first hit on every step can be helpful, to keep track).
Karla Shnikov is a funk tune too, but it does not fit with the other funks (Funk and Angela Davis) as well as they do together. But just try and find your own way!
Move index+middle finger like rabbit ears and cover other fingers with other hand.
Name: Based on a fictional character invented by RoR called Karla Shnikov, a Russian activist who was one of Trotzky’s secret lovers and was first a communist, but later became an anarchist. There was a big discussion about taking a fictive name, but it can be seen as our ability to create our own histories – in the end, there might have been many “Karla Snikov”s, individuals fighting for rights or liberation, that historians never wrote about since history has always been written by the powerful and the exceptional, and especially hiding the contribution of women.
Musical background: (More info needed.)
Sign: The fictional character Karla Shnikov was also an animal rights activist, and one of her actions was to liberate the biggest rabbit farm in Russia. The sign depicts rabbit ears.
History: The tune was invented in London. Used to be called Kalashnikov, the sign a finger pistol, but was changed because some bands got in trouble for showing a gun, and other bands didn’t want to have a tune named after a weapon. The story of Karla Shnikov was made up by the working group thinking about a new name+sign for the tune.
- Surdos: medium (it is important, that the double hit in every bar is not played to fast.)
- Repi: medium
- Snare: easy
- Tamb: easy
- Agogô:easy
Karla Shnikov has 3 breaks, one called just Karla Break (aka break 1), Break 2, and its inverted variation.
Karla Break is a quite common break, which can be played in every other tune. it consists of three bars of 4 hits per beat (for instruments which only have one beater it’s better to play 2 hits per beat) followed by a fourth bar where only the first sixteenth is played and the rest is silence. This Break creates a lot of tension. It’s also possible to let one instrument section continue playing it’s normal rhythm (for most instruments it sounds pretty awesome).
Break 2 consists of one bar with sixteen notes, played from soft to loud in group of four, then another bar with one note on time on each beat, and then two call & response bars.
Break 2 inverted consists in playing break 2 forward and then backward (that is, 4 up, 4 beats ontime, 2x call&response, 2x call&response, 4 beats ontime, 4 down).