Edu Ribeiro teaches you the technique he uses to play one of the most common drum patterns in Brazilian jazz: the maracatu.
Transcription
Hi, I am Edu Ribeiro and welcome to Two Minute Jazz. I’m here now to talk about maracatu. Maracatu is everything from the Northeast of Brazil, from Recife. And it’s so hard to play on the drum set because the coordination is difficult. We have to bring the lines of the percussion for the drum set. And they have three special voices that you have put together in this instrument.
The first one, and I think the easiest one, is the snare drum, which is just sixteenth notes playing with a little swing, from that part of Brazil.
We have the alfaia, that’s the huge instrument that you play with two sticks.
I can’t play that tom and that snare together, and I will try to imitate that with my bass drum. Just with the special and the principle notes from here. I will put the snare drum and the bass drum together.
And there is another important voice of the percussion: that is the agogô. That is the most famous line of this percussion. I don’t have the agogô here, and I’m trying to play the agogô from the floor tom and the rack tom to make the different types of sound.
Okay, and I will put together with the bass drum. Note that I play the hi-hat just on the quarter note, on the time. And I did a different sticking for the snare drum to play the right hand with rack tom and floor tom, and the left hand imitating the snare drum.
Okay, happy practicing, and see you next time.
