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 made by Americans (like out of The Real Book), they will usually be written in 4/4. These are transcribed mainly from tunes by Airto and Dom Um Romao. Some are left hand parts played on drumset, others are percussion parts— tamborim or agogo— a few are horn parts or rhythm section parts. That's why you want to listen to, and play along with, the actual music from Brazil: all the players know the percussion rhythms, and play them.

You also need to listen to develop an ear for how they are inflected; most of them are played with varying accents, long or short notes, and multiple pitches. Where there is a circled note, play the rhythm with that note and without it. Here are a couple of (well, pretty obvious) ways of putting these into context, using this rhythm, for example:

Play the rhythm as rim clicks on the snare drum, with 8th notes on the cymbal, and the usual Samba/Bossa Nova feet parts:

Or play both hands in unison on the snare and cymbal:

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A couple of the tunes these came from are after the break:






The rhythms in 3/2 come from this tune: