1 By Jack Bennett Icanplaydrums.com DVD 14 LATIN STYLES 1
2 ~ INTRODUCTION TO PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS ~ CUBAN INSTRUMENTS CONGAS: the congas are staved wooden or fibre glass shells with tension screwed heads, typically in sets of 2 to 4, played with the fingers and palms. The 5 basic tones of the congas are open, muffled, bass, slap and touch. BONGOS: the bongos are a pair of single headed, open ended drums, held between the knees and played with the fingers and palms. Typically a steady consistent rhythm is played on the bongos such as a martillo.
3 TIMBALES: the timbales are shallow single headed drums, with metal casing producing a high pitch. Aside from the many sounds played from the timbale skin, the timbalero can also play on the side of the timbale shell, playing a rhythm called cascara, which in Spanish means shell. GUIRO: the guiro is a hand held instrument consisting of an open ended hollow gourd with even notches carved into one side, played with a small stick. The stick can either slide across the rough side, or play sort, fast notes. Aside from the Cuban guiro pictured below, there are also Thai, Mexican and Puerto Rican guiros.
4 BRAZILIAN INSTRUMENTS SURDO: a surdo is a large drum ranging from 16 to 26 inches in diameter and around 50-60 cm deep. The surdo is played with one large felt or leather mallet. The other hand dampens the drum, and an open tone is played on beat 3 of each bar. TAMBORIM: the tamborim is a small hand held drum, played with one stick, using a LH twisting technique.
5 REPENIQUE: the repenique is similar to a snare drum, but doesn t have any snare wires, and is tuned very high. And, like the tamborim, it s played with one stick. CAIXA: the caixa is very similar to a snare drum and it does have snare wires. Using regular drumsticks a repetitive 8 th or 16 th note figure is played on top of the groove.
6 PANDEIRO: the pandeiro is a frame drum, very similar to a regular tambourine. But the metal jingles, called Platinellas, are cupped and closer together, producing a tighter, shorter sound which is very useful when playing complex rhythms. AGOGO BELLS: the agogo bells are two joined bells that are held together with one hand and played with the other hand using a regular stick. Aside from the 2 different pitches, the agogo bells and be pressed and squeezed together to produce muted sounds.
7 CABASA: a cabasa is a hand held instrument with rows of floating beads around the far end. by twisting the cabasa you produce a sliding sound, as the beads slide over the rough surface beneath. You can also shake the cabasa quickly to get faster notes, or hit the cabasa into the free hand for accents. THE CLAVES: the claves are two thick sticks made from wood or fibre glass. One clave rests in the finger tips of the left hand (it isn t gripped tight, you want the clave to reasonate when struck), and the right clave hits the left. The claves usually only play 1 of the 8 traditional clave rhythms; being the 2,3 or 3,2 variations of each of the son, rumba, bossa nova and afro cuban clave rhythms.
8 SAMBA OSTINATO FIGURE (FEET) Many Brazilian styles use the samba ostinato figure played between the bass drum and hihats. This is really just imitating the surdo drum part from a Brazilian percussion section. We use this pattern in Samba, Batucada and Bossa Nova styles. The pattern usually has an open tone on the surdo drum on beat 3. It can also be written as 16 th notes, but we will stick with 8 th note here.. 8 CLAVE RHYTHMS The next thing to learn are the 8 different clave rhythms, in fact you can practice them over the top of the samba ostinato figure. They form the fundamental rhythmic counterpoint for all Latin American grooves. For each of the son, rumba, bossa nova, and Afro Cuban claves, there is a 3,2 and a 2,3 variation 8 total. 3, 2 SON CLAVE As you will find for all of the clave rhythms, the names 3,2 and 2,3 don t actually refer to the exact rhythms that these phrases fall on. Here is the rhythm for the 3, 2 son clave.. The numbers above the notes refer to how this rhythm is counted aloud. You can see there are 3 hits in the first bar (the 3 of 3,2) and 2 hits in the second bar (the 2 of 3,2). 1, 2, 3 1, 2 - repeated.
9 However you can see that if I write in the correct counting of where the rhythms actually fall, it s....so just be aware of that. The first example is how this rhythm is traditionally (and still today) counted, even though the counting is not referring to the actual rhythm. This is the same for all the clave rhythms. 2, 3 SON CLAVE So then, a 2, 3 son clave is exactly the same with the bars swapped around. 3, 2 RUMBA CLAVE The only difference between the son and rumba claves is that the 3rd note in the bar of 3 notes is delayed by one 8th note. So in the case of a 3, 2 rumba...you can see that the 3rd note is falling on beat 4+, not beat 4. Once again this rhythm is counted as 1, 2.. 3. 1, 2 2,3 RUMBA CLAVE To get a 2, 3 rumba clave flip the bars around and you get this.
10 3,2 BOSSA NOVA CLAVE You guessed it! You ll play these in a Bossa Nova beat. Let s go back to a 3, 2, son clave, the first clave we learnt.. This time, to get a Bossa Nova 3, 2 clave we delay by one 8th the second note in bar 2. And it becomes this.. Again to get a 2, 3, Bossa Nova clave, flip the bars around.. 3, 2 AFRO CUBAN CLAVE Next let s look at the 6/8 claves, the 3, 2 6/8 clave is as follows. Take no notice of the last note in the second bar, it is just a pickup note. The main notes are the 3 hits in the first bar, and the first two hits in the second. 2,3 AFRO CUBAN CLAVE If we flip the bars around we get the 2,3 afro Cuban clave
11 THE CASCARA PATTERN Let s now look at the popular Cascara pattern and eventually combine it with other rhythms to form a very exciting beat. The basic cascara pattern is as follows, you can play it wherever you like but popular traditional choices are the side of a drum, a cowbell or hitting the rim of a drum. From here let s add a 3, 2 rumba clave pattern played as a rimtap on the snare.. And finally to complete the beat lets introduce what s called a Baiao bass drum pattern, which is a repetitive 2 beat pattern.. When we put the Baiao with the hand pattern we get a full beat now.. Make sure you check this one out in the DVD, it s a very popular and fun beat to play. Hopefully you can see at this pint how Latin American rhythms build upon each other and join readymade rhythms together to form full beats. Remember, this is exactly what a Brazilian percussion section would be playing, it s just that they would have one person playing each part. Whereas here you re playing the entire beat yourself, by emulating their sound on your kit! You can see there is a lot of 4 way coordination needed to play Latin American rhythms on the drums!
12 The above Cascara beat was not a beginner level beat in fact it can take some time to get the pattern down and grooving well, but I wanted to show you right from the start how we can take 3 separate rhythms; the cascara, the 3, 2, rumba clave and the Baiao and form a beat from them all. Let s now go back a step and learn some basic samba beats, this will get you developing basic 4 way coordination for Latin American playing. BASIC SAMBA PATTERNS The first thing we ll do is play 8ths on the ride cymbal with the samba ostinato foot pattern underneath.. Next let s add the rimtap on beat 2 with the LH.. And from here the final thing we do to create the beat is play the first tom on beat 4 and 4+ So that s a basic samba pattern. Now we re going to build more independence with the left hand. The following 6 beats all use a basic core pattern of 8ths on the ride with the samba ostinato pattern with the feet (just like in the above example). But this time the left hand is going to play rimtaps to each of the son, rumba and bossa clave patterns.
13 So the core pattern plus 3, 2 son, is.. Then with a 2, 3 son clave it becomes.. Next we ll do the same thing with a 3, 2 rumba clave, which becomes.. Then a 2, 3 rumba.. Next is the 3, 2 Bossa Nova clave played with the core pattern..
14 Then finally, the 2, 3 Bossa Nova clave with the core pattern.. ADVANCED SAMBA PATTERNS Hopefully by now you have a fair bit of independence with the left hand. Let s now develop independence with the right hand, by changing up the rhythms the RH plays. This is essentially a Latin Matrix, we have 3 RH patterns, and 4 LH patterns, so 12 patterns total, all played over the samba foot pattern.. RH PATTERNS
15 LH PATTERNS You want to first get used to playing them over a samba foot pattern individually, then combine them. By the end for instance, the first L pattern with all 4 RH patterns and the feet would be..
16 ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE By now you should be comfortable moving the LH around the kit while the RH and the feet play repetitive patterns. The next step is to develop even more combinations of hand patterns, that will ultimately lead you to being able to solo and improvise with one hand while playing the other hand pattern on auto pilot. One of the most common patterns the RH ever plays, in any duple oriented style of drumming for that matter, is the following.. What we ll do in this section is play that above pattern continuously while varying what the LH plays on snare, eventually you ll be able to improvise random ideas and come up with your own patterns. Let s learn some basic rhythms first, then we ll look at some actual phrases.. ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE BASIC UNITS.
17 ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE PHRASES
18 THE BOSSA NOVA Let s now look at the Bossa Nova style. Bossa s are generally quite similar patterns to sambas, although usually less busy, not as loud and slower. The first type of Bossa s we ll look at involve the RH playing a repetitive 8th note figure with a brush, while the LH plays rimtaps on the snare. Get used to playing the following hand pattern first, in all these examples the notes on the floor tom space (the second bottom space on the stave) are the brush notes, while the left hand rimtaps etc remain on the snare space. BASIC PATTERN: Make sure the snare wires are turned OFF. From there we re going to bring the second rimtap in one 8th note earlier.. At this point let s bring in the foot pattern.. So that s a basic Bossa sounding pattern, let s now play the Bossa Nova clave rhythm with the rimtaps. Another way to play a bossa is to keep the snares off, but this time use 2 sticks. Play the following rhythm..
19 SNARE DRUM SAMBAS Let s now look at some sambas that use JUST the snare drum. We will be using as many sounds and tones from the snare as possible to create interesting rhythms. Thing such as rimtaps, rimshots, open tones, muffled tones etc. To start out, learn the following pattern with your RH and play it as open sounding rimshots on the RH side of the snare drum. Keep the snare wires turned OFF. What we re going to do next is play all the in between 8th notes of the rhythm above with the LH as rimtaps.. To separate the music a bit and make it easier to read, all the RH snare rhythms (open tones) are written on the hihat space. Then we ll add the samba foot pattern.. Now, make sure when you re playing the rimtaps that UNLIKE when you play them for a rock pattern, you keep the palm of the hand OFF the snare. This will mean that when you hit the snare with the RH that you will get a nice open tone from the drum and not a dead muffled tone.
20 You want open tones from all the RH notes. Here are some more patterns.. TOM TOM SAMBAS. Let s now move the RH to the toms and back, this will give the patterns a different colour.