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.

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YouTube examples after the break:

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:

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.