What's more important, the beat or the groove?

#26
two fingers said:
That's a tough one.

Does anyone else seem to have a problem with the feel of the music?

I'm right there with you by the way. The feel of the music is ever so much more important than playing the "correct" samba beat (or shuffle, or 6 beat, or whatever). The music is all about the feel.

It seems as though your drummer has read the sheet music and gotten himself stuck in a loop. He is just repeating the same beat over and over making sure he does it "correctly" for fear of pissing off other classically trained samba drummers in the room. That's hard to fix.

One of my favorite drummers lives/works in Nashville. I had the pleasure of doing a dozen or so gigs with him. He carries a small kit (on mounted tom and one floor tom) to gigs to cover everything from classic and modern country to bar rock. But his FEEL is just AMAZING. I look up at the end of the set and think "Dang. I almost forgot he was there!" His pocket is so huge I just get in it and play. It's as if we're one instrument.

Good luck with this.
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Well, careful there. I suspect what OP is describing are actual FORMS that Latin and Afro-Cuban music use which manifest rhythmically (e.g. Clave, son, guaguanco, etc). They are specific rhythmic forms that the rhythm section needs to know. Doing them incorrectly is kind of like hitting the wrong chord changes on a blues. That would make it not a blues anymore (I'm not talking about chord subs or established variations like bird blues, I mean truly off the reservation stuff).

The music is actually counted in terms of these rhythmic forms rather than Beats 1 2 3 etc, but you can figure them out by mapping them to how they would be charted on sheet music. I'm struggling to make an example on mobile but a little googling will help illustrate.

It is WAY cool stuff to learn and practice to, and very challenging if you are not used to it.
 
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#27
In Latin music, the correct rhythm is essential because of how all the parts work together. A samba and bossa bassline can sound/feel very similar to a non-Latin trained bassist, but they are worlds apart to to musicians who take Latin/Afro-Cuban/Brazilian music seriously.

Everything's gotta groove, but you and the drummer should be grooving on the correct rhythms ("beats"), which are very specific in the world of Latin musics.

Without hearing you guys, it could be your drummer absolutely has no groove, or it could be it's a music you're not very experienced/familiar in...yet!
 
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#28
This is a very loaded question from many angles. Do not confuse Latin Jazz with Swing or Bop. Latin is played much straighter, with straight eighths and gets its groove from the syncopation thereof. That alone can make it sound a little stiff if you're thinking swing eighths and Charlie Parker vs. Gato Barbieri.
I remember reading an old Jaco interview where he talks about the only gig he ever got fired from after the first night. He was supposed to sit in for a friend who'd been playing in a Latino band for a while. Jaco wasn't catching the subtleties of the different beats between the Sambas, Mambos, Cha Chas, etc., and was given a check and his walking papers the first night.
Unless this band gets a lot of gigs, and you are truly interested in learning this stuff, it might prove too frustrating. Believe me, if you're doing a lot more than root, octave, fifth, and you're not catching those subtleties, it'll kill the groove as well as the beat. --Obviously these guys have been playing together for a long while. ---If it's any help, I had to use the rhythm machine ripped out of an old Thomas Organ that had all those beats built into it in order to learn them well. If you really want to learn them, and you can find one of those old organ rhythm machines, accent the Clave stop, and it will help you enormously.
 
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#29
InhumanResource said:
Well, careful there. I suspect what OP is describing are actual FORMS that Latin and Afro-Cuban music use which manifest rhythmically (e.g. Clave, son, guaguanco, etc). They are specific rhythmic forms that the rhythm section needs to know. Doing them incorrectly is kind of like hitting the wrong chord changes on a blues. That would make it not a blues anymore (I'm not talking about chord subs or established variations like bird blues, I mean truly off the reservation stuff).

The music is actually counted in terms of these rhythmic forms rather than Beats 1 2 3 etc, but you can figure them out by mapping them to how they would be charted on sheet music. I'm struggling to make an example on mobile but a little googling will help illustrate.

It is WAY cool stuff to learn and practice to, and very challenging if you are not used to it.
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This.

The first thing people who haven't studied "Latin" grooves want to do, is they wanna paint all of them with one big Latin brush. Nope, it don't work that way. And I can tell, only a few of the previous comments are by people that have studied these forms, or at least have a familiarity with them.

If you choose to play the music, you need to learn how to play it. So if the drummer is giving you a specific form to follow, you don't just go, "duuuh Latin..."

If you wanna leatn Latin forms, spend some time with this book.
Amazon.com: The Latin Bass Book (9781883217112): Oscar Stagnaro, Chuck Sher: Books

It's hard, and I don't say that about many musical concepts. But maybe that's because I didn't grow up with listening to this type of music. Anyway It will hip you to what you need to know. And it will improve your time by leaps and bounds. It will make you hear differently.

Also you and your drummer can work through it together. It's ALWAYS better to know how to do something, than not know...
 
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#31
InhumanResource said:
Well, careful there. I suspect what OP is describing are actual FORMS that Latin and Afro-Cuban music use which manifest rhythmically (e.g. Clave, son, guaguanco, etc). They are specific rhythmic forms that the rhythm section needs to know. Doing them incorrectly is kind of like hitting the wrong chord changes on a blues. That would make it not a blues anymore (I'm not talking about chord subs or established variations like bird blues, I mean truly off the reservation stuff).

The music is actually counted in terms of these rhythmic forms rather than Beats 1 2 3 etc, but you can figure them out by mapping them to how they would be charted on sheet music. I'm struggling to make an example on mobile but a little googling will help illustrate.

It is WAY cool stuff to learn and practice to, and very challenging if you are not used to it.
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I get it. There are established forms/formats. That being said, hardly any genre has more soulful players than Latin music. So, at some point, you gotta put away the calculator and play the dang song. ;) Just let it eat.
 
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#32
two fingers said:
I get it. There are established forms/formats. That being said, hardly any genre has more soulful players than Latin music. So, at some point, you gotta put away the calculator and play the dang song. ;) Just let it eat.
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Haha. I hear you, but it's not quite about calculating and more about how to perform that particular art. See the Jaco story a few posts above - each of these forms is a specific thing that needs to be learned or you aren't really playing the song. And then get fired.
 
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#33
two fingers said:
I get it. There are established forms/formats. That being said, hardly any genre has more soulful players than Latin music. So, at some point, you gotta put away the calculator and play the dang song. ;) Just let it eat.
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That generic Latin thing again... You have to understand the time if you wanna play that stuff, so the calculator comment is unhelpful...

You can't let it eat, if you don't know what's on the menu...
 
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#34
InhumanResource said:
each of these forms is a specific thing that needs to be learned or you aren't really playing the song. And then get fired.
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This is the thing these people are not getting.

You can play that fake Latin crap in some dive bar and you can play that fake ass jazz in the same bar, but if you are in a high level (or even medium level) gig, your last comment is the last action.

You get fired.
 
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#35
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#36
Spin Doctor said:
This is the thing these people are not getting.

You can play that fake Latin crap in some dive bar and you can play that fake ass jazz in the same bar, but if you are in a high level (or even medium level) gig, your last comment is the last action.

You get fired.
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Yeah man. It's like playing Maiden Voyage and not knowing where the hits are. They're defining elements of the piece, and if you don't have then it's all wrong.

For Latin or Afro Cuban, this stuff is as fundamental as finding 1 in a funk tune.

Now, whether or not I can actually DO this myself is another story ;)
 
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#37
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#38
REV said:
Oh this is a Samba beat or this is a Cumbia beat or whatever and I get that these different beats can be effective to help give a song a certain feel. But... to me it should not be at the expense of the groove.
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Do you know what makes a cumbia or samba bass line?
Either the rhythm section as a whole knows what to do , or it needs to learn.


InhumanResource said:
They are specific rhythmic forms that the rhythm section needs to know. Doing them incorrectly is kind of like hitting the wrong chord changes on a blues.
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Exactly what I was thinking.
Latin bass music is deceptively simple sounding.
I played for years faking it before things really started to sink in.
The seminal factor was me sitting down and learning all the rhythms:
clave, conga tumbao , piano montuno, bass tumbao, the timbale cascara, and basic bell pattern.

finally seeing the rhythmic whole was like a new dawn.

So, when your drummer says 'this is a Samba beat' ask him to teach his part to you.
If you are unfamiliar with a samba bass line, maybe he knows.
Know what your drummer is doing so you can groove to it.
Also, yes to Oscar Stangoro's book!
 
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