Musicking
Musicking
An Introduction to Brazilian Popular Music | Part 2 - Technique and Musicianship
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In this episode, we're joined by Cincinnati-based Brazilian music ensemble Estrada do Sol. Featuring core members Brian Cashwell (piano), Andrea Cefalo (vocals), and Kiko Sebrian (percussion), along with guest bassist Diego Jose de Silva, this episode explores the technical approach to performing various Brazilian popular music styles.
You need to feel the groove in your body before you play. Instrument is just a tool. Brazilian music is about feeling. So you have to dance. You have to dance. It's not ceiling.
SPEAKER_01Hello and welcome to the Music King Podcast. I'm your host, Trinity Lay, and this is the second episode in a two-part introduction to Brazilian popular music. In this episode, our musicians will be talking about different styles that they perform from the technical perspectives of their own instruments. So I must admit, I did some Facebook stalking on your group and I wrote a post about how you kind of got the basics of this Brazilian music from a friend of yours. Is that true?
SPEAKER_00Um who was that friend?
SPEAKER_01Was it Georgie?
SPEAKER_00George? Yes, I did get a lot of basics from George. George, when we originally started this group, Georgie was our guitar player. And he taught me quite a lot, not so much through words, but just through playing. The way I describe it is George is a beautiful player, very authentic style. But you know, unlike a jazz person, there's not a whole lot of fluidity in what he would do. He would do it like just beautifully, a lot of the times the same way. And so I had to really, really pay attention to what he was doing and fit in. Because also I really did not know much about the style, the rhythm, the harmony, and stuff like that. It came from sort of a jazz uh player's perspective. And when you play with a guitar player and you're a piano player, there's not a lot of room for variation. He's doing a certain extension. If he's doing a sharp nine, you better be doing a sharp nine. Because if you're playing a nine, it's gonna sound anyway. Uh yeah, what I what I learned from George was a lot about the rhythm, the style, and really how to listen.
SPEAKER_01And you mentioned jazz and you have a jazz background. And I feel like a lot of people in America they associate music from Brazil and Latin America with jazz. So what are the the characteristic differences of the approach and the also the music?
SPEAKER_00Well, actually, you know, if you look at it too, a lot of Brazilian music was influenced by jazz as well when we get to the Bossa Nova era. But I think what I've discovered, and I'm I still will consider myself a novice in this music. I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to research, and but that's one of the big differences is that jazz musicians will play tunes by Brazilian composers, you know, bossa novas or sambas. They'll play them like jazz musicians. There's a lot more subtlety with not only, you know, the rhythmic aspect of it, to really get what is the correct feel for a lot of this music takes a lot of deep study and listening. And also harmonically, there's a lot more going on. What I was playing just a minute ago, I was trying to get this in my head. Just that little moment right there, a jazz musician might just play. Which is cool, but they're missing all the cool stuff in there. They're missing a lot of the meat in the sandwich. And I was certainly one of those guys myself, and the more you start to really you try to respect it, you try to be authentic. As I said, there's, you know, I'm just starting to discover more about the various what's the difference between a samba and a bass nova and a baion, marocatu, all these sort of things. And you know, you sort of go in at first and you're you're doing this, and oh, this is kind of this is this is Brazilian, it's Latin feel, but then you realize there's a lot more to it. There's a lot more depth and subtlety within these various styles. And what your job is when you're playing by yourself or with a guitar player or with a bass player or with a drummer, whatever, you have a certain role, you have a job to do, and you try to do your job in your place as a gear with the entire ensemble.
SPEAKER_04Please, jazz guys, don't take don't take me wrong. But when I'm looking for jazz improvisation idea, I can see a little bit come and see how great I am, how great I play my skills, how fast I can play. I think it's much more about the musician. But Brazilian music is more about the people that I'm playing for. Even I know that in jazz you're playing. Four people, they are there to enjoy the concert, but they are there to enjoy to see the stars, to see how great those musicians they play. But Brazilian music is more I'm here to play for you, for the community. And Brazilian music is based on community. So we come from a third, a third country, and there we have we have our poorness, we have our richness, but we try to suffer together, we try to be happy together through the music.
SPEAKER_01And you're also a composer in your compositions. Do you include elements of your Brazilian background, Brazilian music, and how so?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think that would be impossible not to put my Brazilian taste in my composition. But that's that that's interesting because first of all, Brazilian rhythm, we think more in 2-4, in 16th notes, because Brazilian music is more based on anticipation, like kick the groove and kick the beat, always jump in. Because you have chaca chaca chaca-chaka want to change. It's all the 16th, it's chacka chacka chukka. It's posting here. That's one of my strategies when I'm teaching a few Brazilian grooves and rhythms for the students.
SPEAKER_01So this ensemble that we're playing in, Estrada do Sol, plays a lot of different styles of Brazilian music, from samba to bayon to toro to tropicalia and pb. Could you describe from the perspective of your instrument? Could you describe the differences between these different styles?
SPEAKER_04Yes, I can describe that, but I have to say one thing. So for two years I had a chance to teach Brazilian music here in a jazz camp. And I found the best way to teach that. In my opinion, that's teach for them how to play percussion first. All the approach that we have now basically we're trying to replicate percussion instruments.
SPEAKER_02In a percussion setup, they would have like a like a triangle that same guy's using an orchestra here, an instrument called Zabumba. It is like a kind of a bass drum that people play on the bottom of the drum with a stick, like a fan stick, and uh with like a mallet on the on the top of the drum set. But but anyways, I'm trying to emulate those instruments here on the drum set and and kind of play more jazzistic way as well. Oh fleur do maracujá de maracujá is one of them that I'm playing like this groove here. So my my timbo my thimble here is basically w what it would be the triangle. And then uh my my zaboo is my bass rum, and my snare can be what can it's it's they also use snares in some different groups there. Like it's very very different from from like some boss nova for sure.
SPEAKER_04In Bayon is a uh rhythm from Orfis of Brazil that we have three bass instruments to play Bayon. And so what's the lowest instrument to play in Bayon? It's a boomba. So okay, I take the idea and put on bass. That's basically the idea to play Brazilian music. So you you figure out what the percussion does first and you try to call it that I'm doing and so in bass, if I play bayon, I'll show you an example of bayon. So what is a boomba does in bayon? One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. But what the the Gonzalez does and I have one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. And that's a it's very basic stuff. But basically I just caught that one, two, one, two, three.
SPEAKER_00Kamey, and I just start start discovering. Um, I'm not sure if I'm getting it right yet. I'm trying, but but I start to listen to his music and and you know, now I'm getting the knowledge to say, oh yeah, that's a buy-on. And really what I thought about it, it's a lot like a Charleston. But once again, I I am not in a position to speak authoritatively on any of this. And I hope, you know, one day to be. Circling back to what George um taught me was yeah, he had the perfect feel. And so I had to figure out how to fit in with George, and it really improved my playing and my listening a lot.
SPEAKER_01So I know that bio has uh association with accordion playing, and I remember at one of your concerts, you pulled out a melodica and started playing. And I I was surprised, I was like, oh, that's that's creative. And then I realized it sounded right at home with the music. So it were you playing a bio by any chance when you were playing them last time.
SPEAKER_00You know what? I think we were playing that piece is called Da Key. And actually, a lot of times I had brought in some earlier gigs when we have a guitar player, and I might do it again, I have an accordion as well. I mean, I can make an accordion sound pretty good, but I'm not, you know, a heavy accordion player. And you know, it's a certain sort of uh region that we're talking about as well. You know, but that is important because a lot of it is based on accordion playing.
SPEAKER_04That's another rhythm from the official Brazil that's very fast, and also they basically just cop the the take the same idea.
SPEAKER_03What the bass drum does in a frevo is a chakatum patch pain two and four, one, a two, three, four, one, two, three, boom, but the pinching patch patum, pin chitin patch, patum, the jacket kitten, chat, challenge kitten kids cut the boom, the tack kitting patch patum, the band kitten patch back to kitten judge, pink, the pink kitten, the pink Okay, let's talk about Samba.
SPEAKER_04Just a short instrumentation about samba. We have so that's a lowest instrument.
SPEAKER_02So we cop the the bass drum and the beginning, like samba and jazz, and uh from the perspective of a drummer, you have all those symbols, jazz drummers, they that's it, it's it's just part of what the drum set here in the US. And in in Brazil, the drum set in the beginning, what we're doing, like is really trying to play samba on these instruments. So it's we we were using like the drums and not the symbols. I could really, for example, like this maybe the close there would be like a samba in the beginning would be something like um the jazz repertoire start getting there, people say, well, yeah, let's play the chord changes but with with some uh feel, right? And those guys have like some names like uh dramas like Edson Machado, Mewton Banana, uh Hubinho Barcotchi, just like Zim Zimbo Trio kind of with something like this, right? So that starts the fusion of just a natural thing. And later on with time, groups like Ermeto Pascual they start like at adding other like rhythms from Brazil to this and messing with the harmony as well, putting like bayon and and rhythms from the south as well of Brazil. So there's a whole research, like uh for example, this Quarteto Novo, for example, they have this album kind of like a trip through Brazil here that they they were really into playing an instrumental music with like a cool chords with Brazilian oriented rhythm material. Rosa Morena, for example, it it's gonna be more like uh I'm still using my brushes and and the same, but it's way more like a I'm using my drum set more like the like a percussion instrument and like so I'm really thinking that this like a little percussion instrument like my Surdo here ma bass drum and my snare as like how they the high-pitched like a uh straight instrument. I'm gonna play like a bob boss here. So that yeah, we play a Bob Bossa is kind of like this I like to say like a uh a apartment samba, right? That have to to make it more minimal.
SPEAKER_00So I'm watching this video with this you know internationally acclaimed jazz pianist, and he's doing what I'm doing, and the guy who did the video is Elio Alves, New York-based Brazilian pianist. And it sounds great, but he's like, no, no, no, it's not quite right. It's just it's this very, very, very subtle like articulation and accent, and of course, like the the feel, the relaxed feel of it. And I'm I'm still working on that. I'm let's see. So you might relate this to playing Mozart. You anybody can sit down and play the first phrase of a Mozart sonata, but to really get it the way it should be, to really play it like Mozart should be played, takes a long time and a lot of focus and a lot of control and technique. So that's kind of where I'm at is trying to like really just make it feel good like that.
SPEAKER_02There's some grooves that it's called like a sambayon that I don't know what he had in his brain when he was creating that, but it sounds sounds kind of like a ijesha. It has like a the kipumbo, kipum bum, kipumbum. So it's almost like for me, it's like almost like a samba ijesha. Like a so it's the it's interesting, like Ronaldo has those those hybrid grooves, it's kind of a mixing with different Brazilian rhythms and also with like uh uh salsa. So very, very creative. The sometimes simple, but it's challenging because your brain's kind of wired, yeah, okay, I'm gonna play a bayon, I'm gonna play a salmon, and it's oh no, this is in between, it's not quite that man.
SPEAKER_00We've been doing a lot of different things. We cut sort of went on a kick with this uh Jean Donato, and I talked to Brazilian musicians, say, oh he's a fusion guy, right? He's not just like this is not really Brazilian, but daily I play for ballet class and I work this stuff in all the time. What I what really struck me about this guy was we started checking him out, and he we saw some videos, and he's just cherubic, like smiling, just sweetheart, just a huge beautiful guy, and I want to be that guy. And he barely played, I mean, he doesn't ever try to play a lot of notes. He just tries to play a very simple stuff, but it just feels so good. And it's like that's what I want to go for. A lot of people can play a lot more notes than I can. Tons of them. They're at CCM right now and they're just like playing tons of notes, and it's great. Nothing's wrong with that. But I think, you know, as what I can do now is I'm not gonna play faster than than the than the hottest pianist out there, but I can maybe make you feel good. And that's kind of an everything I'm doing. So um that's what I I learned from that guy. It's like this minimalist. His tunes are fairly simple harmonically. They just have this beautiful spirit in this great rhythm. What I want to explain about my experience with this music is it it sounds kind of cool, and you listen again, it's like, wait, well, that's that's really neat. How's that happening with the oh, that's really cool. And then you listen to it, it just keeps unfolding like an onion. It's so deep, there's so much more to it. And um even like using some of this stuff to teach jazz theory. Yeah, you know, last uh year I gave the students uh projects. It was this pretty complex piece by Idu Lobo, and they got into it and they did it, and it's like they put all these layers together and they each did little pits of it, pieces of it. And uh the music is very rich, a lot of stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything specific that you're really looking forward to in your future with Brazilian music, or is there any projects in the future, or just you know, general trends that excite you?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, we've we've been expanding and playing with with more musicians, and and we're even having some opportunities to go from a duo to a trio to a quartet to a quintet, and starting to think about some other more adventurous stuff we could do instrumentally that we haven't done yet. Some composers that are really wonderful, like Bertho Gismonte is his great composer. We do a little bit by Hermeto Pasquale, but this guy I mentioned earlier, Dory Camey. I love so so much of his music, and so I'm just thinking about exciting ways to get more of that stuff going. Maybe even I mean, I would love to have a project with a large ensemble, you know, 10, 12 musicians up their horns and everything. That's kind of a dream.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, for sure. There are a lot of things going on, a lot of great musicians coming. But I'm stuck with the old generations. I'm not following the new generation because I'm just looking forward to having a strong based on the roots. But I'm still using the old stuff to to develop as a musician. As a source for my new things, I'm just still using what they did in the past.
SPEAKER_08And it was really my dream to be able to do this and have other people also love it, enjoy it, etc. To have other people appreciate it who maybe hadn't been exposed to it before, to share songs that someone hasn't heard before and have them, you know, perk up or notice or you know, move their butts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, check it out, listen to it. You know, it's uh don't just casually listen, just keep listening, and um, there's so much variety there, and there's so much depth. You can find one piece of music you could probably listen to for a year and still find new stuff in it.
SPEAKER_01So, thank you for your patience, and we hope to continue to release episodes and interviews more consistently in the future. I hope you tune in to the next episode.