Samba is a card game requiring 162 cards to play. While similar to Rummy and Canasta, Samba has its own set of rules which should be remembered during play. There are three stages during a player’s turn: draw, meld and discard. Alternatively, players can go out by either merging all but one card into one samba, or having two sambas and a canasta on hand at once.
Rhythm
Samba music is defined by rhythm. This musical genre features a steady beat with full percussion that recalls parade-like drumming to produce infectious energy. Learning its rhythms before starting to play them is essential; one good way of practicing would be clapping hands or drumming on tables or using other objects that create percussive noises to improve coordination and become a more confident drummer.
Stewart Jean, Program Chair for Drums at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California notes that Samba “feels like CAFFEINE to your body: your knees bounce, chest tickles and shoulders shimmy!” It requires the ability to play complex rhythms over long periods, which may pose challenges to many drummers; but Stewart suggests starting small and working up as needed.
Practice with a metronome is an effective way to develop coordination. A metronome will give you a clear indication of how long each rhythm should last and at what rate it should be played; alternatively, try listening to recordings of samba to improve timing and accuracy.
Samba is an Afro-Brazilian cultural phenomenon encompassing music, dance, and spirituality. Its intricate orchestration allows for multiple rhythmic interpretations. Samba serves as the centerpiece of Rio Carnival and has had an international impactful on popular music genres around the world.
The steady rhythms of samba create an intoxicating hypnosis, making it one of Brazil’s most beloved dance styles and an influential force on modern pop music. Traditionally performed by groups of percussionists called baterias – movie audiences first experienced it via Carmen Miranda films while tourists may witness this artform at Brazilian carnival parades.
Samba is a genre of Latin music characterized by rhythmic motifs and repetitive chord progressions that place greater emphasis on melody than other styles of Latin music. It is typically played to an off-beat of two beats (2/4). Players must learn its basic pattern – consisting of high surdo marking on-beats (the first) and low surdo marking offbeats (the second) – before mastering playing hand-to-hand eighth notes on ride/tongua/cymbals while maintaining continuous quarter-notes on hi hat/cymbals/cymbals/etc.
Foot pattern
Samba is an African dance form brought to Brazil through slave trade by enslaved African people, becoming an integral part of Carnival celebrations there. Combining elements of Western music with African rhythms and harmonies, Samba features layers of percussion instruments with call and response motifs often upbeat in rhythm (two to four time signatures are usually found), call-and-response patterns with callback motifs (which range from 2/4 to 4/4 time signatures), along with accompaniment by other instruments including harmonic instruments like pianos or guitars – as well as jazz influences; many modern samba bands also incorporate jazz influences in their performances.
Pagode Samba, popular since the 1980s, employs multiple beats to produce a more soothing sound than batucada samba. Three percussion instruments used are tantan, larger version of surdo surdo and repique de mao; cavaquinho and violao may also be utilized during performances of this style of samba music. Song lyrics often focus on love or other forms of humor – making this style popular among highly skilled improvisers such as Zeca Pagodinho among these genres of samba music.
Samba dancing requires similar footwork as tap dancing; however, its heel movement differs considerably. Instead of moving in a circular fashion like in tap dancing, its emphasis lies more heavily on back accents. When performing this rhythm it should drop with hip relaxation while knee movement must remain aligned with ankle. Unfortunately this makes learning this style challenging for newcomers.
Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, more popularly known as Pixinguinha, began to experiment with samba music during the late 1950s. Although his musical style had long been influenced by choro tradition, Pixinguinha soon departed this tradition and focused on creating danceable yet complex samba compositions; his works later served as models for other samba musicians.
To play Samba, a minimum of two players and three standard decks of cards (available from Amazon at an affordable price) will be needed, along with some means for keeping score – such as pen and paper or a scorekeeper app on your smartphone – as each round ends and one player wins by accruing points.
Clave pattern
The clave is a rhythmic pattern found at the core of many Latin American styles such as samba. However, its influence can also be found across genres such as jazz, funk and R&B music. If you play drums, percussion or bass guitar then understanding this fundamental musical element is crucial in crafting your own signature groove and musical style.
Though commonly mistaken as an immutable tradition, the clave is actually fluid and constantly shifting with performance practices of individual musicians, making it an ever-evolving rhythmic foundation of all styles of music. Still, some general principles can help you understand and incorporate it into your musical vocabulary.
Start out right with the standard bell pattern (pictured above). This rhythm has five accentuated beats across two bars of music, and can be played using cowbell or the ride cymbal bell on a drum set. Emphasized beats occur typically on the second and fourth counts in each measure – its first beat should be slow while its final one quick with rests between measures. This clave makes an excellent jumping-off point for exploring samba rhythm.
Forward son clave can be found in rumba, mambo and salsa music and features strong beats on two-sides and three beats on one. Like cascara rhythm described earlier, son clave does not alternate between two- and three-stroke patterns like its counterpart does.
Terri Lyne Carrington of jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington explores how the clave can be modified in different ways and adapted to modern jazz context. Although her variations take the clave “pretty far afield from its place of musical habitation,” they do so with deep respect for its roots. This video would make an excellent topic of discussion when showing this to children as it shows how its rhythmic integrity remains while adapting it for various musical genres.
Bass drum pattern
Bass drums come in various sizes and are used across a range of musical genres. Their feel differs significantly from that of snare drums, which typically utilize foot pedals and provide more of a steady backbeat allowing drummers to incorporate syncopation through handclaps or kick drums more freely; on the contrary, bass drums must always enter reliably on every downbeat to ensure accurate rhythm, phrasing, and timing are maintained at all times – an essential aspect of playing samba drums!
The most typical bass drum pattern consists of playing one note on each beat with two double notes on the “and” of every third beat, providing an easy starting point for beginners. To start practicing this pattern successfully at a slower tempo until your feet can line up correctly with the beat and gradually increase it in speed as soon as you feel comfortable enough.
Another classic bass drum pattern involves striking one note per beat, with an accent on the second beat and regular strikes on each beat thereafter. Although more challenging to play than its counterparts, once you master this style of patterning you can then experiment with other variations.
The last bass drum pattern is a two-note double-note pattern featuring an accented Hi-Hat strike on beats one and four of a double note rhythmic progression, played using double notes with Hi-Hat accented notes on beats one and four of a double note rhythmic progression. It requires more skill to play accurately while striking Hi-Hat notes as usual when you would strike normal notes normally while bass drum notes play on beats two and three of this more advanced groove compared to its predecessor. It will require practice but can easily become part of your playing arsenal!
