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.

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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:

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:

Feel in samba

I'll start this post with an enormous caveat that Brazilian music is not my field of expertise at all.  Many people around me are learning Portuguese, making trips to Brazil and being very serious about it, making me feel a little like the guy who sat next to the class clown, as I mentioned to someone recently. Still I thought this might be helpful to people who are, like me, seeking to put together some understanding from multiple, imperfect bits of information. See my "samba builder" download for applications for these concepts.

First, for reference:



The subject of feel in samba is intimidating because it has never been clearly and fully analyzed, at least that I've seen. Here in their entirety are three of the most helpful things I've read about it:

Duduka da Fonseca/Bob Weiner in Brazilian Rhythms for Drumset: One of the keys to understanding Brazilian music is feel the pull towards a "triplet pulse" against the 2/4 feel of the samba.

Eliane Elias quoted by Peter Erskine in The Drum Perspective: "You Americans don't know how to swing samba; you all sound like TI-KA TI-KA TI-KA TI-KA." I smirked and said, "Well then, how should it sound?" She sang, "DO-goosh-ga, DO-goosh-ga, DO-goosh-ga, DO-goosh-ga."

Peter Erskine in Drum Concepts and Techniques: Remember to accent on 2. 

Todd's Methods: Samba builder

Here's a little method I improvised for developing some flexibility with the samba- I put this together pretty quickly away from the drums, so I'm sure I'll add to it as I work with it in my own practice. The idea here is to get comfortable with bringing the feet in and out, making changes in dynamics, and using the bass drum independently, like a surdo player, instead of being locked into the usual dotted-8th/16th pattern. Check out the notes at the end for some fairly important things about interpretation. A good first approach is to work from a base of the most comfortable hand part, and practice making adds and changes to that.

 

Update: my man Boomka over at the Drummerworld.com forum offered a couple of excellent links- an interview with Duduka da Fonseca where he discusses the importance of a sensitive approach to the bass drum, plus a video demonstrating the feel of the repinicado part (video embedded after the break).

Download the pdf.