Purpose of the book
1. To provide insight into various
Brazilian rhythms.
2. To provide a dynamic working tool
intended to facilitate hands-on practice for rhythm section
players.
Philosophy & Methodology
The idea of this play-along CD / book is
to provide you a “real playing” situation where you
can interact with the other players in the band as an
accompanist and as a soloist. You will have the chance to react
to the band in eight different rhythms of Brazilian music
(samba, bossa nova, partido alto, choro, baião, frevo,
marcha rancho and afoxé) with “real song”
examples.
We offer our view and approach to creating
a coherent rhythm section sound based on the Brazilian genre
presented in this book. There are other ways to go about it! We
recommend that you seek out both recorded and live
performances, and choose what works for you.
It is crucially important to learn and
become comfortable with each of the elements of these rhythms
since it is the way one combines them that creates their
particular feel and swing. You can then freely apply them to
your instrument. Remember that as a musician you are always in
relationship with the underlying pulse, the music itself, and
with your band mates.
We have included these eight rhythms
because we consider them fundamental and common to the universe
of Brazilian music. However, Brazil is a country of many rhythm
groups, and in any particular one of them exist variations of
tempo, accentuation, syncopation and instrumentation. As you
enter this world by listening, researching, playing, and
perhaps traveling to the different areas of the country, you
will encounter them and hopefully make them part of your
musical language. It is our intention and hope to get you
started. Where you take it is up to you. We are confident that
if you spend some time with the music in this book, you will
gain enough familiarity with the Brazilian music tradition to
recognize and understand the sounds you hear.
Our principal objectives
1. To demonstrate specific parts and roles
for each instrument of the Brazilian
rhythm section.
2. To provide an interactive recording
which demonstrates how a group of
players creates and
maintains the grooves.
Since there is literature available which
introduce many of the rhythms found here, we sought a different
approach to our workbook. We thought it important to provide
tracks which contained not just short examples of rhythms, or a
cyclic harmonic progression meant for improvisation training,
but complete arrangements including introduction, multi-part
melody, solo section, and a written ending. In this way we show
how each member of the rhythm section deals with the many roles
he is faced with in a real performing or recording situation.
Notes about the CDs
The discussion arose as we created
the book as to whether we should provide tracks with a panning
option, or multiple versions of the same track which subtract
one of the instruments. We opted for the latter for two reasons:
1. The hard-pan option implies a loss of stereo, and we opted
for the superior sound quality of the more common mix which
balances the instruments throughout the sound spectrum. 2. We
imagined many of our readers in the practice room, studying
with a portable CD unit. The pan function does not exist on any
unit with which we are familiar.
Each song in the CD was mixed down in 5
different configurations: on both CDs you will find a full
version to show you what is intended to be the final result of
the performance. On the guitar/piano CD you will find two
additional mixes of the same tune: one track without the piano,
and one track without the guitar; on the Bass/Drums CD you will
find one track without the bass and the other without the
drums. This way you can learn the tune and became familiar with
all the parts as you play along with us. We do not provide
count offs for the full versions.
We include characteristic percussion parts
played by Edson da Silva (Café) that remain as a
constant time reference on all example tracks. The rhythmic
motives and patterns can serve as primary sources of melodic
and comping ideas, and they certainly swing harder than a
click!
Notes about the chapter format
Each chapter is constructed in the
following way:
1.GENERAL INFORMATION: Contains some historical and geographical information
along with mention of some of the important personalities
who’s work is associated with the genre.
2. UNDERLYING RHYTHMIC REFERENCE: Provides the essential rhythmic figures to
have in mind while creating your parts. Each line of the
diagrams represents a figure fun damental to the rhythm. When
felt or sounded together, they create the basis of the groove.
3. SAMPLE PARTS: Suggested figures for each instrument that you can use
to play along with the tracks. The short phrases are
taken from the harmony of the song and based on the underlying
rhythmic reference.
4. FORM:
A description of how the performance of each song is
constructed.
5. MUSIC: Written
parts include a lead sheet for piano and guitar, a bass part
and a drum part.
6. PERFORMANCE NOTES AND EXTRACTED
EXAMPLES: A selection of
examples from the recorded tracks that we think will add to
your understanding of how we as rhythm section players
construct our parts. Timings are based on the “full
version”.
Italicized words and terms appear in the
glossary.