Subtractive method: batucada

This developing subtractive method is becoming really interesting. It makes it much easier to write and communicate more complex orchestrations than in the past— which is not an end in itself, it just makes it easier to adapt the system for specific styles, with specific constraints. 

I've been doing a batucada-type samba of samba thing with it. Part of the thing with this method is that we're converting a Stone-type sticking pattern to do things other than Right hand and Left hand. For this method we'll use A = accent on the snare drum, and B = add bass drum: 
    

AAAA-BBBB
AAAB-BBBB
AAAB-BBBA
AAAB-ABAB

 

Use either of these as the loose foundation: 

Those accents are default for this style; you don't have to reconcile them with the accents/bass drum in the practice systems. And you don't have to rigorously work out the buzzes/drags. It sounds best if it's not too worked out— let it be a little rough. 

As it says, accent the snare drum on any As in the book rhythm, add bass drum to any Bs. And don't do either of them on notes that aren't sounding in the book rhythm. If that instruction doesn't make sense to you, read the system summary post again.  

Here's how the first line of the p. 38 exercise in Syncopation would be played using the AAAA-BBBB system: 

Play the system accents as rim shots, or accented buzzes, or whatever you like. It's not about doing the system 100% perfectly, it's about using it to go for a sound. 

At slower tempos you could play the 8th notes half-swung— which takes it into more of a New Orleans street-beat type of feel— at faster tempos try the tripteenth-style samba feel, where all four 8th notes get squashed in to the same space as the first-through-last notes of a triplet. 

Batucada drill for drumset

We probably did something similar to this way back in '12 or '13, when I was writing a lot of stuff on samba. My writing and my knowledge of the style has improved a lot since then, so I guess we're about due for an update. This is based on a drill I improvised in my own practicing.

Batucada is a form of samba, played in the street by often very large percussion ensembles, called baterias. It's different than how samba is typically played on the drumset in a US jazz setting, but it's good to have it inform your playing, and there are opportunities to use it.

Practice exercises 1-18, then improvise combinations of the 2/4 patterns, thinking in two or four bar phrases, playing busier/more syncopated at the ends of phrases. See this post for some examples of how these longer phrases are constructed in Brazilian music. Learn exercises 1-18 with each of the tom moves, and experiment with the optional snare drum articulations.

See also my older pieces on feel in samba for tips on acquiring the particular kind of swing associated with this style of music. In most of the situations where you'll actually use this style, you'll play the rhythm a little straighter than is suggested by those posts, but that (and a lot of listening) will get you working in the right direction. It would be a great idea to spend at least part of your practice time playing with recordings.

Get the pdf

Batucada on the drum set

We haven't done anything new with samba in awhile, because I'm still digesting all of the stuff we've done previously. But here's something new that came up yesterday, using open and muffled tones on the bass drum to emulate the surdo. It would also be helpful to run the third surdo parts from O Batuque Carioca, as well as my bossa bass drum variations, and the standard dotted-8th/16th samba pattern with this. This feel combines well with samba cruzado, which we've discussed before.

Notes: 
- Play the snare drum with the "tripteenth" feel; the '#' and the 'a' of each beat of 16ths line up almost exactly with the first and last notes of a triplet. Play with or without the buzz on the 'e', with sticks or brushes.
- Use either hihat pattern. The second pattern uses a closed note on beat 1, and a splash on beat 2.
- Play staccato bass drum notes as a dead stroke- bury the beater in the head to make a muffled sound. Play the tenuto notes as an open tone, allowing the beater to rebound. This works best with a drum with little or no muffling.
- Bass drum patterns with rests are preparatory studies. Patterns without rests are performance patterns.
- Also substitute dotted-8th/16th rhythm for the 8th notes or the 16th-8th-16th rhythm on the performance patterns.

Get the pdf


YouTube examples after the break:

Transcription: Mocidade tamborims, 2009

Here's something I did for my own benefit, which may or may not be of interest to my regular readers. I picked up and have been fooling around with a Pearl bass drum-mounted tamborim (CSD! Product Review: rather crappy, but serviceable, and inexpensive), and so have started checking out tamborim lead lines more carefully. This one is maybe not so useful from a drum set perspective- the tempo is fast, and the part is a little simplified- but it gives a nice context for checking out what's going on in the complete bateria, and how the line interacts with the vocal part. And it's a fun clip. Mocidade is one of Rio's great samba schools, and has had a lot of influence on Portland samba musicians.

A style note: I've given the standard accents during the repinicado part- the 16ths that are the time feel- but not on the melodic figures, during which almost every note is accented. I just didn't feel like entering all those accents.

Get the pdf.

YouTube clip after the break.

More on samba feel

Following up on my earlier post on feel in samba, here I have gone a little further in analyzing what's going on with the repinicado/"tripteenth" (Michael Spiro's term, I believe) thing in samba, and have put together a little method for varying the accents without losing the feel. Once you get the concept, you may not need to see it written out like this, but it does help some people. It's important to bring it back around to conceiving the rhythm as an interpretation of 16th notes in 2/4 or 8th notes in 2/2.

File this under "things that are about as accurate as the idea that swing in jazz is based on triplets." You have to apply some musicianship, and do a lot of listening and playing to get to where this is supposed to go.

Visit my other samba posts for examples of this A drum set student who was really, really into samba and wanted to develop a lot of facility with this sort of thing might also apply the first thirteen Stick Control stickings to the 3/8 exercises, Accents and Rebounds-style.

Get the pdf.

Samba Cruzado - third surdo warm-ups

Here are some new preparatory studies for working with samba cruzado, and for getting this third surdo thing happening with the bass drum- I've refined my methods a bit as I've been working with this in my own practice.

To briefly explain what we're about to readers who haven't been following me on this: in a samba bateria, the first and second surdos provide the structural bass drum parts, and the third surdo plays a more syncopated solo line. In samba cruzado, played on the drum set, the left hand crosses over the right to play the first and second surdo parts on the toms (often suggesting the third as well), while the right hand emulates the tamborim or caixa on the snare drum. The bass drum usually plays a generic ostinato, which is actually made redundant by the left hand part.

So what we're developing here is the use of the bass drum as that independent third surdo voice, while using the right hand effectively. If we were strictly trying to copy a bateria, the right hand could play a two-measure tamborim part, with variations, while the bass drum plays a four-measure semi-improvised third surdo part. Realistically, you're probably going to have to choose between concentrating either on the right hand, with simplified bass drum accompaniment, or on the bass drum, with the right hand filling in where it can. And that usually makes the most musical sense as well- you will often want to emphasize one over the other.


Get the pdf.

Fun and useful samba/Brazilian music links

Here are a number of samba/Brazilian music-related links you might find helpful:

Carnival in Rio: play yourself a samba school drums section.  We'll start with a fun one. This is a flash application allowing you to conduct your own batucada. Just go.

Ginga: a Brazilian way to groove by Jovino Santos Neto. This is a very informative pdf on the interpretation of several Brazilian styles, by Jovino, a great pianist and composer from Rio, currently living in Seattle.

From the introduction:

Brazilian music in all its forms has enjoyed tremendous popularity in recent years, especially among jazz musicians who appreciate its rhythmic complexity coupled with its harmonic sophistication. Almost every contemporary jazz performance features tunes with a Brazilian flavor, either a composition by a Brazilian composer or a jazz standard set to a samba or bossa nova feel. However, with notable exceptions, the musical results fail to achieve the essential characteristics which define those Brazilian styles. This is most often caused not by a lack of musical ability, but by an improper understanding of the rhythmic essence of the styles. In Brazil, this most subtle aspect of groove is often known as ginga (with a soft g as in ginseng). It refers to the way in which a dancer moves, to the way a beautiful woman walks and to the way that music incites motion in the listeners. The purpose of this paper is to provide rhythmic information in a practical and concise way, leading to the development of ginga in the performance of Brazilian-based music. We will be looking at 4 distinct grooves: samba, baião, marcha and maracatu from that perspective, hoping to create a deeper intuitive feeling for their rhythmic nature. 

Lions of Batucada caixa rides. All of the caixa (that's a Brazilian snare drum) parts for a Portland group which I performed with in the mid-2000's, the Lions of Batucada. These were picked up by members who travelled to Brazil, or from samba heavyweights like Jorge Alabe, Boca Rum, Bruno Moraes, Michael Spiro, and Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro who came up to work with the group. I wish I had found this before I did my caixa blow-out- this can replace many of the patterns I included there. They're all written in easy to understand tablature. 

Todd's Methods: adding bass and snare to samba cruzado

Well, we're all samba all the time around here these days, but what the heck- the point of this enterprise is for me to post things I'm interested in, and working on, and right now I happen to be doing a lot with samba.

Samba cruzado is a way of playing samba on the drum set in which the left hand crosses over the right to play the toms. This is a style I resisted doing for some time, because role of the hands is reversed- the right hand does the filling in while the left keeps the "ride" part. For that reason none of my regular instinctive stuff works- you have to relearn how to make a phrase ending, how to fill in with the "off" hand. The reason for the crossing over is to compensate for weak left hands- apparently it was easier for Brazilian drummers to reverse the lead than it was to develop the left so it could play the snare parts cleanly.

What I've done here is begin to integrate the cruzado thing with the third surdo parts from O Bataque Carioca, played on the bass drum, while filling in with the right hand on the snare to outline caixa-type patterns. In batucada, the third surdo is the lead voice of the surdo section, filling out the quarter notes of the first and second surdos.

The exercises here are mostly little more than warm-ups- once you've gotten comfortable introducing the snare drum parts, do most of your reading from the O Bataque... page. It's a good idea to review the other samba things I've posted (under the labels at the bottom of the post, hit "samba") as well as Ed Uribe's and Duduka's books. And listen to and play as much samba as you can, of course.

Download the pdf.

After the break- clip of Dom Um Romao playing this style:

Caixa blow out: part 1

Here are a couple of pages of caixa (that's a Brazilian snare drum) patterns which are in common use in Portland, along with some of their variations from other sources. Includes a partial illustration of the "tripteenth" (Michael Spiro's term) concept, which may be helpful in getting the feel happening. These are primarily for use in a batucada group, though set players trying to cop that style are going to want to know them, for information if nothing else. Part two will feature patterns more commonly used on the drum set.

Download the pdf.
UPDATE: the Lions of Batucada, a group I performed with in the mid-00's, has their caixa rides written in tablature and posted online. Several of them replace or are alternatives to the ones I've presented here.

After the break are several fun and helpful videos:

Bass drum variations for samba

Here are a couple of pages of third surdo parts, transcribed (one could say stolen) from a book purchased by a friend in Brazil, O Batuque Carioca, by Guilherme Goncalves and Odilon Costa. These are similar to some of the bass drum parts in my samba builder download (v. 2 coming soon!), but authentic- my parts are good coordination practice, but these are the real deal. Play all notes open, letting the beater come away from the head. Where possible (and where it makes musical sense) you could try adding a short/dead stroke on beat one.

Worldsamba.org says about O Batuque Carioca: "Written in English and Portuguese, this book details the history, terminology, instrumentation, and written notation for samba played in Rio de Janeiro. With detailed tablature [actually conventional notation- tb] for each instrument, groups of instruments, and the rhythm sections from the great schools of today, this is the one and only book you will need to get started in creating your very own "batucada" Rio-Style!" 

Good luck finding it in North America- there is an email address for the publisher included in the pdf, though it is from 2000, and may well no longer be in service. The bold, determined, and Portuguese-speaking can try calling the store in Rio where it was purchased, Casa Oliviera, at 021 2325 8109.

Download the pdf.

Method book round up: Brazilian drumming

As some of you may have noticed, I've been thinking a lot about Samba of late. And as my friend Blake Thomas, an expert cuica (not to mention caixa and zbumba) player has loaned me a few of his books on the subject, I thought this would be a good time to give an overview of some of them. So he we are- the good, the great, and the fine:

Brazilian Rhythms for Drumset. By Duduka da Fonseca and Bob Weiner.

This has become a modern classic- the first serious attempt at dealing with the style authentically; at least the first gaining widespread usage in the US. Includes robust text dealing with historical background, the percussion instruments, performance/practice notes, glossary and discography. Takes you through fifteen pages of batucada-style samba, with the hands on the snare drum and toms, mimicking caixa, tamborim and surdo, before getting to the more familiar (to Americans) cymbal and snare drum based style. Covers Samba, Bossa Nova, and Baiao thoroughly, with  shorter sections on Maracatu, Marcha and Frevo, and odd meters.

The presentation is a little haphazard; some concepts that could've been easily explained verbally are instead written out as exercises, many (but not all) exercises have a written stop at the end, for reasons that are not explained. I believe the text could've benefited from some aggressive editing- many explanations for exercises contain no more information than the title of the exercise. For example:

Exercise 13 Samba Cruzado - Variation #4 - With 16th-notes on hi-hat 

Is explained:

Try playing sixteenth-notes on the hi-hat instead of on the snare. 

It's a small thing, but that kind of sludgy build-up of text is a little bit of a distraction. The book offers excellent information, but also feels somewhat laborious to work through for these reasons. Nevertheless, it's an essential book every drummer interested in Brazilian music should own.

More after the break:

Finishing taxes music

More after the break: