Hand Patterns Inspired by Afro-Caribbean Rhythms

Thanks to all of you for re-visiting my pages. It's a pleasure to share this rhythmic information with you. This lessons examines some applications of the clave and a very common Brasilian rhythm. Quite a while ago, when I was living in Miami, I had the pleasure of having Victor Lewis at my house. For those of you who don't know him, Victor's a great drummer and a wonderful person. Victor had a habit of playing clave with the Afro-Cuban music we were listening to. He played the pattern as alternating singles with accents.

Victor's applications inspired me and I developed my own ideas. I just played the rhythms, the son and rumba claves, by using paradiddles and doubles. It's really quite simple to understand the concept; playing it is a bit different! First, just learn the hand motions. They're just paradiddles and doubles but they can take a little time to learn. Then, my suggestion is to play half notes with your feet while you're playing these patterns. Have your metronome also play half notes.

Here's the lesson.

So, that's it for now. I'm interested to hear what you think. Email me with your thoughts. Thanks.

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