Busy week here, moving my girlfriend Casey Scott to Ashland, Oregon for the summer, where she will be acting and playing bass in Family Album, the new play by Stew Stewart, part of the Oregon Shakespearean […]
Category: Brazil
Groove o’ the day: Tamba Trio — Negro
Posting is going to be a little spotty for the next few days; I’m recording my new album at the beginning of next week, and until then I’ll be preoccupied with stuff related to that. […]
Another page of Brazilian rhythms
Here is another page of Brazilian rhythms, written in 4/4. The last set was written as 8th and 16th notes in 2/4, the native meter of much of Brazilian music, but when playing lead sheets […]
Podcast — Episode 6: Todd’s playalong tracks
Hey, we haven’t done a podcast in some time, have we? I’ve been doing most of my drumset practicing along with recordings recently— book exercises and everything— and I thought I’d share some of the […]
A page of Brazilian rhythms
Here I’ve pulled the snare drum parts from a random selection of bossa nova/samba records— by Baden Powell, Tamba Trio, Milton Banana, and others. Some of these are played fairly repetitively on the recording, some […]
Northern Brazilian drumming
From the Vic Firth site, here’s a nice clinic on northeastern Brazilian drumming, by US drummer Scott Kettner. He discusses the folkloric/authentic forms of the Baião and Maracatu rhythms, which have a history of being […]
Groove o’ the day: Robertino Silva — Saídas E Bandeiras
Been having a little bit of writer’s block in finishing several longer pieces this week, so let’s do something easy. Here’s a simple rock beat in 5/4 by one of my favorite Brazilian drummers, Robertinho […]
Groove o’ the day: funk samba
Today we have a studio-funk style samba by Ivan Conti of Azymuth, on the tune Manhã, from the group’s 1974 self-titled album: The right hand alternates between the bell of the cymbal, and the regular […]
Bass drum variations for Bossa Nova — adding left hand
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I like the page of bossa nova bass drum variations I did before, but it’s a little difficult to visualize the left hand part […]
Groove o’ the day: Ivan Conti — Questao de Etica
More Brazilian fusion from Ivan Conti, of Azymuth. They really embraced the technology in the early 80’s, so a good amount of their stuff is fairly unlistenable, but the records with real drums on them […]
Transcription: Ivan Conti — Linha do Horizonte
OK, I may be really blowing what’s left of my credibility with you guys with this one, but I’ll just have to live with that. This is a goofy little thing with a nice drum […]
Odd meter samba?
This line from Peter Erskine’s The Drum Perspective is pretty much an instant classic: I’ve felt strongly, for a long time now, that instead of seducing and encouraging the younger and learning drummer to practice, […]