Best books: The Essence of Brazilian Percussion and Drum Set by Ed Uribe

The Essence of Brazilian Percussion and Drum Set is the little sister of Uribe's massive volume on Afro-Cuban percussion. I've been using it almost daily for several months now, and not only is it a model of what a genre book should be, it's quickly turning into one of my favorite drum books, period. It reads and operates- very appealingly- more like a professional manual than a typical drum book (Ralph Humphrey's Even in the Odds would be another one with that feeling about it).

In 144 pages it presents a huge amount of information in very concise, manageable chapters. In addition to practice material, there are sections with historical background of Brazilian music and history, notes on sound of the instruments, explanations of the various song styles, examples of rhythm section parts, and a very useful glossary. Styles covered include bossa nova (in 4, 5, 6, and 7/4), samba (in 2, 3, and 7, plus batucada-style, samba with brushes, samba cruzado) , baiao, samba marcha, partido alto, marcha and frevo, choro/chorinho, afoxe, and catarete. With a number of simple but very robust creative methods presented, it has an extremely open system, and I think no two players approaching it would come out sounding the same.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to introducing each of the common percussion instruments used in samba, which is important even if, like me, you aren't particularly interested in learning to play them all. They are the basis for each of the parts of the drum set grooves, and being familiar with them is one of the keys to playing creatively with any authenticity. That does seem to be Uribe's major point in including them- he does not give a lot of instruction on how to run or play in a bateria.

In some genre books, there is a fairly inescapable feeling that the user is an outsider to the music, and that a high degree of deference is expected. Rather than presenting the music in a folkloric manner, in which the music is more or less fixed, this book has improvisation at the core of its method; the music is presented as very much a living thing, and though not of the culture, the user is treated as a creator and participant.

One of my few reservations about it is that the unique Brazilian swing feel is handled imprecisely, with only general instructions that are maybe a bit misleading (or which at least require a demonstration)- the essence of Uribe's explanation is to slur the "a 1 e" of the repinicado rhythm, and "pull back a little on the time". As you can see from my posts on the subject, my philosophy is that, like with swing in jazz, it should be reduced to something quantifiable and reasonably close- from there it's a short leap for the player to get to an authentic feel through listening and playing. It's one of the most difficult subjects related to this music, so it's an easy shortcoming to forgive, but it would've been nice to see the usage and relationships between even 16ths, triplets, and "tripteenths"- all of which occur in Brazilian music- explored and explained more deeply.

But this is a great book- a true player's book. Highly recommended.

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.

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: