Brazil again

I was fortunate enough to kick off 2024 with another trip to Brazil along with many of my fellow Brazilian music nerds here in London.

With only a few short weeks to Carnival, Rio was completely abuzz with incredible music and atmosphere.  Whereas on the last trip in 2022 I saw more jazz, this trip afforded me the opportunity to visit some of the samba schools as they prepare for Carnival.

I did have a chance to catch up with some of my favorite drummers, and new friends that I met on the last trip, like Renato Massa, Marcus Thadeu, and Marcio Bahia.

Marcio Bahia

But thanks to some well connected friends I was able to visit some of the oldest, and most respected samba schools in Rio, like....

Portela

Mangueira

Salgueiro

....and see some technical rehearsals in the Sambódromo.

I also had the great pleasure of seeing master pandeirista, Bira Presidente, at Cacique de Ramos, where Fundo de Quintal was formed.

If, by chance, you're at all interested in seeing more pictures and videos from the trip, you can head over to my Instagram page and see "Brazil trip '24" in my highlighted stories.

Now that I'm back in cold, dark London, I have quite a few posts in the works that I hope to get up here for you soon.

Bira Presidente Trademark Language

I recently came upon this video on pandeiro legend, Bira Presidente, talking about his playing style.  At the 1:15 mark Bira demonstrates the same trademark sounds that we looked at awhile back in the transcription of him playing "Vai Lá, Vai Lá" with Fundo de Quintal.

Here's the original post of the transcription, and notation of the phrases in the video below.

Pandeiro Transcription - Bira Presidente, "Vai Lá, Vai Lá"

The last two pandeiro transcription posts owe a whole lot to the guy in today's transcription, Bira Presidente.  Bira is their pandeiro player, and one of the founding members, of Fundo de Quintal, which is generally considered to be the first pagode group.  

Fundo de Quintal pioneered the use of the tantan and repique de mão in samba, and groups have been modeling themselves on Quintal since the 80s.  Bira's style of pandeiro playing was also incredibly new and unique when Quintal first hit the scene in the late 70s.  Much of the partido alto style of playing pandeiro (which is not the same as the partido alto rhythm that most drumset players learn) can be traced back to Bira, including the last two transcriptions on this blog.  Let's look at a few of the Bira trademarks before moving on to the entire transcription.

This first groove is a Bira trademark.  In today's transcription he plays it as the main material throughout the tune.  There is a second pandeiro on this recording, though, that is playing consistent 16th notes throughout.  In the last two transcriptions the players played 16th notes in the verses, and this Bira groove in the chorus.

It's commonly played like this:

Or with a small variation, like this:

Although we won't see it in today's transcription, I should mention this other groove which can also be played a couple of different ways:

This groove is often called "partido alto" (again, not the same as the partido alto rhythm) and will often serve as an intro to a tune.  It's not uncommon to hear this groove being played in the verses, and Bira's groove above being played in the chorus; or you may hear both of these played at the same time with each pandeiro panned hard to opposite sides of the mix which creates a very cool chatter.

Finally, there are two variations that Bira is credited with that can be dropped in either of the above grooves.  Look for both of these in the transcription below.

Pandeiro transcription - Paulinho Félix, "Procura-se Um Amor"

As you might have guessed from my recent posting I've been playing a lot of pandeiro lately, specifically nylon pandeiro, which is a beast in it's own right compared to playing hide pandeiro.

This time around we're looking at the playing of Paulinho Félix.  In this tune Paulinho employs a lot of material pioneered by pandeiro legend Bira Presidente, who we'll look at in the next post.  However, he's taken Bira's language and expanded/modernized it which, again, we'll chat about soon.

If you followed along with the last pandeiro post, you should notice a lot of similarities in the shape of the tune: constant 16th notes in the verses, broken partido alto style playing in the choruses, hemiola used to create tension, and the almost obligatory triplet phrase.

Thiago Viégas, however, kept things a little bit tamer for the sake of demonstration where as Félix gets a little busier.  There's some fun stuff in here and the tempo is a little brighter, so it should be a little bit more of a workout if you're playing along at home.