Samba Fills

This is one of the most overlooked elements of playing samba, though I'm sure the same thing happens in any style of music.  When learning a new style or rhythmic tradition, most drummers work out how to play grooves, which is what most book and resources focus on.  But when it comes time to play a fill, they typically resort to the things they already know, leaving seven bars of decent sounding samba, followed by a bar of jazz or rock fills.  These fills often interrupt the directional rhythm of the groove, in this case telecoteco, and therefore the overall flow.  The fills are as idiomatically important as the groove itself because, really, they still ARE the groove.  So, as with anything else, we must listen, listen, listen, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe.

 

Here is a page of some fills by two well-known and respected samba drummers who have been mentioned on this blog before, the late, great Camilo Mariano, and Cuca Teixeira.  These all come from the same Maria Rita album that this repique de anel transcription came from, so this might have to become a little series of material from different albums.

 

These fills are all from phrase endings that have no ensemble hits that are specific that the tune, so these fills should be pretty versatile.  Note how the groove in most cases, retains the structure of the telecoteco pattern or, at the very least, contains a lot of "e's" and "a's".  The double bar line of each example marks the phrase ending as the fills often carry over into the first bar or two of the next phrase.

 

 

Download the PDF
 

Musings on Social Media and Online Drumming

Someone on the Drummerworld forum recently asked if Instagram and social media were still suitable places for drummers and if they are good places to grow in a digital space.  I ended up having more to say about it thatn I first thought, so I'll share my thoughts with you here.

 

In general, social media is garbage these days.  I shudder when I think about how much time I have wasted on these platforms, and sometimes still do.  But, as much as I disparage it, I still have accounts, and use them.

 

For some drummers, social media is the end; a career goal, to be an "Instagram drummer", or a "YouTube drummer".  And I get it.  The prospect of working from home, playing whatever you like, knowing thousands of people are consuming and enjoying your work, and getting paid of the privledge is appealing.  But anymore, the chances of that happening are not really any better than getting a steady high-end gig like studio work, touring, or Broadway.

 

For most of us, social media is a means to different end.  And for me, it's something like this:

 

As a user/consumer: 

I've never used TikTok, so I can't comment on it, but I still think Instagram can be good, especially if you use it wisely and put a little bit of effort into your algorithm. It will still try to serve you garbage, so you have to be careful not to fall into the doom scroll addiction trap (which is frighteningly easy to do). But if you occasionally hit "Not interested" on the crap, and give likes to the good stuff, then there is a lot of nice content out there.

With less time to practice these days I use Instagram the way many of us used to use Modern Drummer Magazine, when we would all put the magazine up on the stand and try the little nuggets they published in there. On my Instagram account, I have a few different folders, organized by drumming topic.  I save the good stuff, and then try them out when I only have a short time to practice.

 

I still think YouTube is worthy in a similar regard.  There's some great long form content out there.  I remember the days of having to buy or borrow a VHS tape or DVD, and now it's all just there for free.  YouTube comes with a similar caveat to Instagram, though, in that you have to be careful not to get sucked in. But, if you can stay focused there's some wonderful resources.

 

YouTube, in particular, presents another problem though.  In the VHS and DVD days, there was a vetting process.  For the most part, only good (or at least decent) stuff could get made.  But now, it's the wild west.  Anyone with a drumset and an iPhone can be a "teacher", and there's a lot of click bait garbage to the effect of "Do These 10 Things to Fix Your Hands NOW, or You'll Never Get a Gig....EVER". I recall seeing one video warning us to "fix this HUGE problem with your hi-hat", which ended up taking about 10 minutes to say, "move it a little bit to the left".  But again, if you know what you're looking for and dig in the right corners there's lots to be found.

As a creator/professional musician:  
 

I'm not great at posting quality material with regularity, which is something I'm trying to improve, because I do see a correlation between my Instagram posting and calls for gigs. It's almost like a business card these days. It just reminds people that you're around, and it shows them what you can do. I've been called for some really nice gigs with people I'd never worked with before directly from Instagram.

On YouTube I was doing some long form content during the pandemic that I'm hoping to get back to, and again, I got some decent traction for awhile.  It got me some students, and translated to more readers here on the blog, as well as more followers on social media which, in turn, occasionally leads to gigs.

 

So there you go.  In short, social media and online platforms are like prescription drugs.  They can be hugely benefical.  But, handled poorly, or in the wrong hands, they can do a lot of damage.  Keep your head on straight, proceed with caution, and use them to your advantage.

Gear changes in soloing coordination

One of the earliest posts on this blog was this linear idea.  I originally used it to develop new soloing vocabulary, but later found that it was also cool for creating linear grooves, or as a technical exercise for dynamic control between your limbs, and improving your ear.

I've been using it in my teaching for years, and some students take it to the next level where we begin combining different rhythms into the same stickings.  The principle remains exactly the same; it just gets harder as two beats of each phrase switch to triplets.  Some are easier than others.  The very first phrase, for example, comes out nice and square.  But when we move on to the next phrase, the gear change happens in the middle of the three beats.

As with the original post, where this exercise really comes into it's own is with the accents.  Once you can move freely in between any of the phrases, and place the accents anywhere you want you can create pretty much endless melodic combinations.  Another cool sound is to play the unaccented notes almost inaudibly, like ghost notes.

I wrote it in 8th notes and triplets as it's easier to read, but you can obviously think of it and feel it in 16th notes and sextuplets as well.

You can download the PDF here.