Tootler
Well-known member
For a lot of Latin American music styles, the key distinguishing feature is the rhythm and with a ukulele we often describe this in strum patterns. I don't really like to dwell too much on strum patterns because all too often they become mechanical whereas what you want is something that flows. However they are what is used in the ukulele world to talk about rhythm patterns. As a general rule a downstrum is played on the beat and an upstrum off the beat.
Bearing this in mind in my attempts to get a feel for the bossa nova rhythm pattern, I came across three basic patterns which in strum terms are like this (a dot indicates where the downbeat would be). Firstly, a two bar pattern which goes
a) |d d .udu|du .ud d|
on one site, they said this wasn't a bossa nova pattern but a samba pattern and on another they said playing just the second bar over was a samba pattern. This was the first pattern I came across and it was the one which fell apart every time I tried to match it to a song. Either way, it simply didn't work for me.
I then came across two one bar patterns which were claimed to be bossa nova patterns
b) d d .udu
c) du .u .udu
I actually ended up with something between these two which seemed to me to sound OK but quite likely is not strictly correct. I actually arrived at this by listening to The Girl From Ipanema and then singing it while trying to match the rhythm of the words to my playing without worrying about the chords.
d) d du .udu
The important thing is to get a bit of a swing feel into it. In swing music the first of a pair of quavers (1/8 notes) is held slightly longer and the second is shortened so the two fit in a beat. (You get something similar in traditional folk tunes when it's known as 'lilt'.) It's the swing that makes the music flow and you need to feel it rather than count it precisely.
All this rubbish is to introduce my second entry
Bearing this in mind in my attempts to get a feel for the bossa nova rhythm pattern, I came across three basic patterns which in strum terms are like this (a dot indicates where the downbeat would be). Firstly, a two bar pattern which goes
a) |d d .udu|du .ud d|
on one site, they said this wasn't a bossa nova pattern but a samba pattern and on another they said playing just the second bar over was a samba pattern. This was the first pattern I came across and it was the one which fell apart every time I tried to match it to a song. Either way, it simply didn't work for me.
I then came across two one bar patterns which were claimed to be bossa nova patterns
b) d d .udu
c) du .u .udu
I actually ended up with something between these two which seemed to me to sound OK but quite likely is not strictly correct. I actually arrived at this by listening to The Girl From Ipanema and then singing it while trying to match the rhythm of the words to my playing without worrying about the chords.
d) d du .udu
The important thing is to get a bit of a swing feel into it. In swing music the first of a pair of quavers (1/8 notes) is held slightly longer and the second is shortened so the two fit in a beat. (You get something similar in traditional folk tunes when it's known as 'lilt'.) It's the swing that makes the music flow and you need to feel it rather than count it precisely.
All this rubbish is to introduce my second entry
The authentic Logic Pro percussion loops seem to help here, and I tried to really accent the 1, 2, 3& beats on my rhythm part. Definitely the toughest challenge I can remember since i've been participating. Thanks for hosting Mikkel ~ 
