What makes bossa nova

Agreed Mark. At best these pieces are advertorials. Like celebrated Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes who penned the lyrics to Girl From Ipanema and co-wrote the play which incredibly, is mentioned above which he collaborated with Jobim on, often cited as the inception of Bossa Nova. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Search uDiscover Music.

George Glasser April 21, at am. Well researched article. Excellent piece. Ben Singer April 24, at am. Andrea Frey Bass August 28, at pm. Mark Streeter March 21, at am. The most important aspect of Latin music is the rhythm.

The rhythm is what differentiates Latin Jazz from regular Jazz. There is no central foundational rhythm around which all other rhythms are structured. All rhythms in Bossa Nova rhythms can be varied or interchanged. This rhythm shown below is often played by the drummer in Bossa Novas. However, this rhythm is NOT a central organising principle around which all other rhythms are structure. It is a rhythmic motif rather than a true clave. A guideline rather than a law. Again, Brazilian music does NOT have use a clave.

And partly for this reason it sounds much more relaxed than Cuban music. A Bossa Nova can be divided into three parts, with each one having a particular rhythm:.

As our example we will be using section A of Girl From Ipanema. The bass ostinato is played with your left hand using the rhythms shown below. Gilberto basically took one of the several rhythmic layers from a samba ensemble, specifically the tamborim, and applied it to the picking hand.

As in samba, the surdo plays an ostinato figure on the downbeat of the beat. The clave pattern sounds very similar to the Cuban styles such as mambo. Also important in the percussion section for bossa nova is the cabasa. These parts are easily adaptable to the drum set, which makes bossa nova a rather popular Brazilian style for drummers.

Instruments Classical guitar Bossa nova is most commonly performed on the nylon-string classical guitar, played with the fingers rather than with a pick.