Bossa/Samba bass drum workout

It says “workout”, like it's some kind of technical challenge, but it's really a page of exercises for opening up some musical possibilities with your bass drum when playing sambas and bossa novas. A lot of drummers (I like to diagnose people's playing issues en masse) get ostinato-itis with these styles.

Play the page straight through, without stopping, 1-4x each exercise, along with the samba/bossa nova recording of your choice (I've given some suggestions at the bottom of the post):

Play the cymbal part with the right hand on the closed hihat, any cymbal, or on the snare drum with a brush. At tempos faster than about HN=100 you'll probably have to play with both hands— alternating, or in a RLLR/LRRL sticking. Or whatever mixed sticking you like. The cymbal rhythm can be played at an even volume with no accents, or accented on 1/3 and &-of-2/&-of-4 when playing alternating/mixed stickings. You can also do this very standard, Baiao-type rhythm on the hihat:

While you're at this, you might take a look at a similar page I did back in 2011. Don't neglect listening to recordings to get the feel and interpretation overall.

Get the pdf

Playalong suggestions after the break:



A moderate tempo possibility:




Medium tempo:



This one should be pretty challenging for playing the cymbal part one-handed:



Another fast one: