Repique de Anel Rhythms for Drumset

I first got this idea in a lesson I had with Kiko Freitas.  Kiko took Dotô’s rhythms of the repique de anel, and orchestrated them for drumset.  

You can revisit this post for more on Dotô and the repique de anel, but as a brief reminder, here’s what a common version of his signature groove looks like.

 

The left hand plays the “dois do bumbo” rhythm on the bottom head, while the right hand taps out a telecoteco-ish pattern on the shell of the drum.  The right and left hand together also make interjections reminiscent of 3rd surdo phrases.

I don’t want to share Kiko’s arrangements without his permission, and working on it gave me some new ideas.  So, I’ve come up with my own interpretation.

Kiko’s version required more in the way of chops.  At points there are four or five 16th notes in a row with one hand.  That’s no big deal at moderate tempos, but I thought the groove also had the potential to work well at brighter tempos.  And, I wanted to get a third pattern in there with a rim click, rather than using the snare.

So, here’s what I came up with….

 

The bass drum covers the left hand part, and the right hand on the hi-hat plays an almost identical rhythm to that of the right hand on the shell of the repique de anel.

The left hand then serves two roles on the rim click.  The accents outline a very common samba/bossa nova pattern.  But each note of that pattern is followed by a second note, intended to be played much quieter, ideally matching whatever volume you choose to play the hi-hat.  If done well, the rim click and hi-hat should blend together, creating a steady stream of 16th notes.

The result is constant 16th notes with two separate comping patterns while not having to play more than three simultaneous 16th notes.  The creates a more relaxed feel and should allow you to play it longer without fatigue.

Slide Technique

For years I’ve wanted to by able to play 16th notes in my right hand with the speed and sensitivity of my favorite Brazilian drummers like Edu Ribeiro and Celso de Almeida.  But despite huge amounts of effort, I always seemed to top out around 115 bpm, at least with any kind of touch.  I could go a little faster, but then it started getting clunky.

I tried playing around with the push/pull technique, but it just never clicked with me.  It felt very unnatural and I found it difficult to make it sit.  I could go a little bit faster with it, but the couple extra clicks I gained were at the expensive of good swing and finesse.  Besides, I’d always been a bit of a traditionalist and wary of such extended techniques.  I remember being in a master class with Kenny Washington where he said something to the effect of, “I don’t mess with all this push/pull or any of that bullshit.”  But on the other hand, I thought, if it gets me to where I want to go sonically, then who cares?

So, a few months back I started putting in some serious effort to what most people call the “slide technique”.  There seems to be a handful of different approaches to it, but they all work in essentially the same fashion.  Rather than bouncing the stick, or push and pulling, it’s swept from side to side, so that each motion that would traditionally yield one sound gets us two.

I asked Kiko Freitas about it in a lesson shortly before I started working on it in earnest, and he pointed out that it comes from brush technique.  Marcio Bahia's style of playing with brushes is a perfect example.  

But, as I started to get more comfortable with this technique I realized that for me, even more so than brushes, it feels very similar to playing a shaker.  And to my ear that vibe very much comes out in the sound as well, to the point where I’ve been using it even at slower tempos that I would be able to play normally because it creates that relaxed feel so indicative of Brazilian music.

One thing to note that can be either a drawback or a bonus, depending on who you are, is that it can be difficult to get a big sound out of this technique.  For me it’s great because it naturally has that very light sound that I’m after.  But, If you’re a hip hop or metal drummer looking for speed AND power then this may not be for you.

Let’s take a look at this technique in action.  It’s popped up on the blog once or twice before.  The video below appeared in this post from 2018, which features an unknown drummer who might be Cesar Machado.  His technique is more of a twisting motion, which seems to me would hurt after awhile, but clearly works for some.  The original video is no longer on YouTube, but you can see it here.

 

This technique also appeared last week in the Arismar do Espirito Santos video.  Like in the video above, Arismar uses a bit more of a twisting motion.  However, he places his index finger over the stick on the same side as the thumb.  This helps him get more power.  For me, though, I found this made it much more difficult to get into and out of the slide, so I’ve avoided it.

There are three other drummers out there today who use some variation of this technique and, not too surprisingly, they’re all Brazilian.

Ramon Montagner who plays one handed rhythms that seem to defy the laws of physics also uses the slide technique in addition to all of the crazy contortionist push/pull motions he’s capable of.  Here’s a slow-mo of his motion:

Douglas Alonso plays a sort of variation on the slide technique.  In the video below, you’ll notice that his style is based on the motions of pandeiro playing and is more complex than the simple back and forth motion.  He starts discussing it around 3:20, and is worth a watch even if you don't speak Portuguese.  But if you want to jump straight to the meat and potatoes, it's at 7:45.

The most recent person I’ve discovered using this technique to great effect is Diego Zangado.  His version seems to be the most straightforward and what I looked to the most when trying to put this together.

So, I tend to think of it a bit like full strokes in German grip, but your thumb is on top like French grip.  That way what would be each down stroke and up stroke you achieve a note with a glancing blow.  You'll have to let your hand relax at the wrist a bit so that the stick isn't moving in a perfectly straight line.  It takes a little tweaking to really feel it and find the sweet spot.

And I tend to lead with the back of my hand, at least when playing samba, so that the downbeats and "&s" move away from me, and the "e" and "a" move towards me.  This is 1. to more closely mimic the motion of a shaker, and 2. because the strokes coming towards you will almost always have a little more weight to them.  This puts a slight emphasis on the "e" and "a", which is exactly what we want when playing samba.

All that said, I do practice it in both directions, so it's more applicable to other styles.

 

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about this technique.

Dig This - Arismar do Espírito Santo on drums

Arismar do Espírito Santo is one of those enigmatic figures in music.  He is a prolific composer, and is very much beloved in Brazil and abroad.  Many of his compositions are already modern day standards, and I think most would agreed that it's fair to label him a living legend.

Beyond his incredible writing, Arismar plays most instruments to a very high level.  Many other multi-instrumentalists seem to have a primary instrument, and then happen to be good at others as well.  I'm not sure that is the case for Arismar.  He seems to gig regularly on guitar, bass, piano, and drums, and many of his albums are multi-tracked with him playing every instrument.

About a year ago he released a series of videos on his YouTube channel in which he talks about and plays many of his instruments.  My Portuguese isn't great, and he tends to speak fairly quickly and colloquially, but still, the musical content is fantastic.  Even if you don't speak a word of Portuguese, the playing alone makes it worth the watch.  His style is incredibly creative, while being steeped in tradition.

Below are the videos on drumset and percussion, but as a rhythm section player the others are certainly worth a watch as well.

 

Groove Transcription - Celso de Almeida, samba cruzado

Samba cruzado is one of, if not the, earliest forms of playing samba on the drumset, predating the use of cymbals as pioneered by Edison Machado.  You can hear this style in the playing of drummers like Walfrido Silva and Luciano Perrone.  

Cruzado, which means "crossed" in Portuguese, refers to the way one must cross their arms to play this style.  But, rather than crossing our dominant hand over our weaker hand as most of us do with our hi-hat, we cross our weaker hand over our dominant hand.  This is because the dominant hand plays telecoteco on the snare drum, while the weaker hand mimics the surdos on the toms.

I've had a more in-depth post on samba cruzado in the draft folder for ages, and I really am hoping to get to it soon, but in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of playing along to this loop I created of Celso de Almeida playing a more modern style of samba cruzado from his self-titled 2014 album.

Here Celso plays a steady stream of 16th notes on the snare drum in his right hand, and uses accents to present a typical bossa nova pattern:

 

In his left hand, Celso plays the toms to mimic surdos, including a third surdo-like turn of phrase:

And with his feet, he plays what is probably the most common bass drum/hi-hat combination:

 

 

Here it is all together, with a loop of Celso playing it to help capture the feel:

 

Transcription - Enéas Costa, "Sonho Meu"

Enéas Costa is a real mystery as best as I can tell.  His discography is impressive, having recorded with the likes of Gal Costa, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, and Caetano Veloso. But I've never been able to find out much else about him; where he is/was from, whether he's still alive, nothing.  The only thing I've ever found is one picture which supposedly shows him playing with the great saxophonist J.T. Mereilles, and bassist Luizão Maia, who played with Elis Regina for many years.

 

 

But we can certainly hear a lot of him, because his name appears on many an album credit.  In addition to the names above, Costa also did considerable work with Maria Bethânia.  Here he is playing the standard "Sonho Meu", from Bethânia's album Álibi.  This recording also features Gal Costa on vocals, Rosinha de Valença on guitar and cavaquinho, the aforementioned Luizão Maia on bass, and a young Tutty Moreno on percussion.

I've done a traditional note-for-note transcription, but below that is a simplified version, which just shows the comping pattern, which is the real sauce of the phrasing and what we're likely most interested in gleaning from a transcription of this nature.  You can then play along with the recording with brushes, a tamborim, whatever you like, really.

 

 

 

Simplified version:

 

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.

A forró primer, part 2 - Baião

Let’s start the meat of this series with the rhythm of forró that many drummers are familiar with on one form or another, baião.  For most drumset players, baião simply means this groove:

And I wouldn’t even say that that’s wrong per se.  It’s just missing a lot of nuance that makes a baião what it is.  And without that nuance one could also be playing a forró or a xaxado as all three of these styles have this cell in them:

But it’s the way that that cell is articulated, as well as the other percussion and melody parts surrounding it that differentiate the three styles.

In this post I'll be referring to the instruments of forró.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about, be sure to check out part 1 of this series.

The zabumba is played with both dead strokes (which mute the head and give a short, staccato sound) and open strokes (which allow the head to ring out).  The placement of the closed and open strokes is part of what differentiates baião, forró and xaxado.  In a baião, the first stroke is muted, while the second is open.

Baião also tends to be driven more by an 8th note subdivision, rather than a 16th note subdivision.  That’s not to say one wouldn’t play 16th notes at all.  But in baião the bacalhau plays mostly 8th notes with less 16th note syncopation.  The most common bacalhau parts are:

Put together, some standard baião interpretations would look like this:

This 8th note subdivision mirrors the melodies which, in baião, are also 8th note heavy and are more relaxed and lyrical.  Baiãos also tend to be played and medium tempos.  Check out Luiz Gonzaga singing “Baião”.  It’s quite legato, and sung almost entirely in 8th notes on the beat at a very reasonable and groovy tempo.

The open sound of the zabumba on the “a” of 1, and the relative lack of variations filling out beat 2 provide the more fluid melodies of baião the space they need to breathe.

I believe it's because of that space that variations and fills in baião are used more sparingly than in other forró styles, but here are some ideas you might come across:

Most of these variations show the bacalhau on the upbeat, but you could easily play the other bacalhau parts above.

To apply this to the drumset we don’t even need to re-write the part.  Simply play the bacalhau part on your snare drum (a cross stick is probably most appropriate), and the low zabumba part on your bass drum.  Given that the closed and open strokes really characterize the different rhythms you may even want to try to imitate this yourself on the bass drum by burying the beater and playing off the head, but it certainly isn’t easy to coordinate at first. 

If you’re able, I would play all four subdivisions on the hi-hat as this most closely mimics the triangle part which is integral to forró grooves:

Most drummers tend to play

with the right hand, presumably out of habit from playing jazz and other styles that rely heavily on that rhythm.  But if the tempo or your current ability won’t allow you to play all four 16th notes, I feel that

captures the essence of the triangle more, especially if you play a small lift on the &, or the e&.

You could also try something I’ve been experimenting with lately, which is playing 1e& on the hi-hat with your right hand, lifting on the &, and snapping the hi-hat shut with your left foot on the “a”, giving you all four subdivisions of the triangle.

Below are all the variations we looked at today, orchestrated for triangle and zabumba.  Drop me and e-mail for a PDF.

In the next part of the series we'll look at the forró rhythm and how it differs to baião.

A forró primer, part 1 - Background, artists, and instruments

I’ve touched on forró and baião on the blog before, but after some questions from friends and students, I figured it was time for a more detailed dive into the defining characteristics of the various rhythms of forró, how to differentiate between them, and how we can apply them to the drumset.

First off, the terms themselves can be a little confusing.  “Forró” is a genre of music originating in the state of northeastern Brazil called Pernambuco.  It is a family of multiple rhythms and dances.  Where the confusion often comes in is that one of the rhythms in said family is called “forró”.  Here’s a little chart to clarify.

THE RHYTHMS OF FORRÓ

-Baião

-Forró

-Xaxado

-Xote

-Arrasta-pé

We’ll talk about each of these rhythms in the coming parts of this series, but let’s first look at a little bit of background.  The roots of the music go back further, but the rise of forró in popular Brazilian culture is typically attributed to the accordion player Luiz Gonzaga.

He is also credited with creating baião as we know it in the 1940s and 50s.  Other well known forró musicians are Dominguinhos, Jackson do Pandeiro, Trio Norestino, Humberto Teixeira, and nowadays, Mestrinho.

While forró can be played on a number of different instruments, and ensembles can range in size and variety, the most traditional forró ensemble is a trio, consisting of an accordion, a triangle, and a zabumba.  A zabumba is essentially a bass drum worn on a sling.  This is where most of our drumset adaptations come from.  The top head is played with a mallet, and is usually muffled in the center, and the bottom head is played with a very thin stick called a bacalhau, creating a very high-pitched snap.

Next time we’ll start looking at the actual rhythms and what we can do with them, but in the meantime, you can check out this live concert of Luiz Gonzaga with his trio.  This will give you an idea of what a traditional forró group looks and sounds like.  If you listen to the whole thing you’ll each each of the rhythms of forró at some point, and you can get an idea of how the zambumba is played.  If you don’t plan to watch the whole thing, you can jump to 19:26 where Gonzaga plays arguably his most famous tune, named after the genre he created, “Baião”.

Sticks (Baquetas) ala Toninho Pinheiro

Apparently, this is how the great Brazilian drummer, Toninho Pinheiro, liked his sticks....

And I think his were even sharper.

Now, I didn't want to destroy a perfectly good pair of sticks, so I figured I'd try it on an old pair first.  These were chewed up from many a rim click, and the tips were chipped.  So I sanded the shaft smooth, sanded the tip all the way off, and then applied a couple coats of finishing oil, and I have to say, they're actually pretty cool.  Not sure I'll be doing it all the time, but it was a worthy experiment.

Toninho first started doing this because he was playing background music in restaurants and wanted a more delicate sound without having to mute his heavy Zildjian Avedis cymbals.  It ended up becoming part of his sound as he found the modified sticks to be perfect for the delicate cymbal sound needed to play Bossa Nova.

I didn't do the final step, which was, after removing the tip with sandpaper, dipping the new tip in a mixture on paint thinner so as to draw out any moisture, which further helped to create a light attack.  He used to heat his sticks for the same reasons.

I've read that other Brazilian drummers of the time did this as well so as to be able to play faster tempos at lighter dynamics, but I can't seem to find reference to any names other than Toninho.

Tonhino's name doesn't seem to get mentioned as much as Edison Machado, Milton Banana, and Dom um Romão, but you should definitely check him out if you're at all interested in Brazilian jazz.  He did long stints in Jongo Trio who supported Elis Regina, Som Três, a trio with Cesar Camargo Mariano that backed Wilson Simonal, and with Dick Farney's trio.  And he worked as a sideman with many of the biggest names in Brazil, like Alaíde Costa and Beth Carvalho.

Transcription - Cuca Teixeira, "Tá Perdoado"

In re-listening to Samba Meu for the repique de anel arrangement in the last post I was also reminded of the fantastic playing by the two drummers on the record Camilo Mariano and Cuca Teixera.

The transcription below is of Cuca.  You can clearly see/hear his style on this tune just as you can in the transcription of “Recado” that I did way back when.  I love the interplay between the rim click and hi-hat.  I’ve got a post in the works for further developing that sound, so hopefully I’ll get that up soon.  In the meantime….