Do you think that Latin drumming is harder than Jazz?

[Pearlrules]

I've been trying to play Latin drumming and I find it very difficult compared to Jazz.
I've been listening a lot to Latin music but I still find it hard. I dont know if you guys feel the same way so please enlighten me.

What do you guys think?
Do you find that Latin drumming is harder than Jazz drumming. If so, how is it?

[NUTHA JASON]

well i know that if you look at the 3 year drumtech curriculum, they put jazz in the year befor latin, and they are pretty progressive.

i think latin is harder because it is such an umbrella term. take the samba for instance. there is a lot of comping and variety within the broad outline of what a smba is. like jazz. but then you have to add all the other 'latin' styles and all the varieties and hybrids between them.

also jazz drumming was literally built on the idea of a single drum kit drummer, while latin drumkit drumming is a close approximation to what is essentially meant to be a group of drummers playing. when latin drumming you, as one person, can literally not do enough.

j

[dairyairman]

i think it's harder, but i grew up playing mostly rock and some jazz, but very little latin. maybe if i grew up playing drums in the dominican republic i wouldn't think it's so hard.

[Garvin]

i think it's harder, but i grew up playing mostly rock and some jazz, but very little latin. maybe if i grew up playing drums in the dominican republic i wouldn't think it's so hard.

I sort of feel the same way. Particularly with different genres of world music, your exposure to the feel and culture that make up the music directly informs your playing. I think learning a style that you didn't grow up hearing would definately make it more difficult. I've been listening to and playing "Latin" music for the last ten years and only in the last 3 or so have I found myself having internalized enough of it to feel natural. Not by any means would I consider myself accomplished or anywhere near where I'd like to be, but I can play what I hear more than I used to.

With jazz, I found it a lot more natural to use all of my limbs to create a whole sound. I grew up hearing jazz and jazz-influenced music and again, while I'm not the jazz drummer I wish I were, I'd have an infinately easier time sitting in on a jazz gig than a Latin gig (unless I were playing congas or bongo).

[KCDrummer]

Excellent points by NJ and Garvin.

I would put jazz and Latin on pretty much equal ground in terms of difficulty. They both require a great deal of study, not just from a musical perspective but also from a historical and cultural perspective, as Garvin mentioned. And they both require a lot of on-the-job traning--that is, you can practice on your own all you want, but it's getting out and playing the music live in context that will lead to mastering it.

Garvin also touched on the internalizing and naturalizing of the styles. Learning styles and patterns is one thing, but I think making them sound authentic and natural is something else entirely. Jazz, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian styles all have inflections and nuances that can't be notated. They don't sound the way they look on paper, they each have a swing all their own and i think this is where the real challenge is.

[wy yung]

I tend to agree with both Garvin and KCdrummer. I believe to play any style correctly requires much study and on the job training. As for each style and whether one is more difficult than the other, well, I think they have equal amounts of subtlety, strength, feel etc combined with a mastery of independence.

Although not strictly a Latin style, samba requires at its very base a proper understanding of the 16th note feel played on the caixa. i.e. the Brazilian snare drum. This pattern is not a straight 16th note feel. In fact I do not believe this pattern can even be notated exactly. So sufficient time spent within the style itself in order to internalize this feel may take quite some time. And this is simply to learn the caixa rhythm without even delving into the roles played by the tamborim, repinique, various surdos chochalos etc.

And of course samba is Brazilian, not Latin, so we have all that and we haven't even faced the clave in Latin music as yet!

So it's a big job and a long road to authenticity.

But the same can be said of jazz. Many of the swing drummers did not move toward bebop. Some because they said they didn't like it, but also many who probably couldn't do it right. And to put things into proper perspective, many of the jazz players of the past couldn't play rock with the power of a Bonham to save their lives. Or any authentic feel at all.

Things of course are different now because the later generations have had exposure to many styles and understand the feel. So it all comes back to what Garvin and KC said, the hard thing isn't so much learning the movements, which is just a matter of physical practice, it's about internalizing the feel.

It's fascinating really. I just love music! It's so interesting. :-)

[bballdrummer34]

And to me, what makes it even harder are the set patterns in those different styles of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music. Knowing when to play the mambo or the guaguanco or the songo. Knowing all the different bell patterns, then combining them. Then, learning them backwards because of the different claves. And not only playing them but playing them right/ stylistically correct. There is so much history involved you dont get respected if you dont play it correctly. Jazz is similar in that aspect but you're not criticized for improvising a little bit, definitely not as strict.

[balboa]

great topic but difficult to answer. almost all is subject to personal opinion. its like saying is pepsi better than coke? like others have said, a brazilian native would probably have very little trouble. i find them to be both equally as challenging. in order to properly learn how to play different styles and to still sound "authentic" one needs to totally imerse oneself into that musical style.

[Melvin]

Latin is harder than Jazz in my opinion.

I think it's pretty hard. Latin music is huge it has a lot of styles, samba, latin jazz, salsa, songo etc. etc. Each style is played very differently and involve a lot of coordination. Just take a look at Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, I tell you, that man is scary!

[jazzin']

Interesting topic and some great responses!

As some have already mentioned I don't think it is a question of one style being harder than any other. All styles are difficult to master and I think that is the question here. Not just the learning of a styles grooves or patterns but the actual mastery of that style. Anyone can learn the patterns. I for one find it slightly easier to pick up the latin/afro cuban/brazilian patterns because my first teacher was mainly a latin player so a lot of my first educatioon was based around those particulars. Although saying that I never found it that difficult to learn the independence required in either these or the jazz idiom. I think one of my stronger points has always been co-ordination so this area I've always been lucky enough to find relatively easy.

As always it is the actual playing, what to use where, knowing the form backwards, all the subtle inflections that come with a styles authenticity that make what you're playing either great, moving and authentic music or a lesson in musical mediocrity.

Also once someone has been playing a genre or style for a while it becomes about the authenticity of feel. In jazz it is the swing, in latin the straight, slightly swung feel or in funk the deep pocket. These can really only be mastered by a lot of playing with a lot of different people over a reasonably long time or in short being immersed in it.

I have started to really focus recently again on getting stuck into my afro-cuban material. Many years ago I was lucky enough to get into the Melbourne Samba Orchestra for a year when I first went to Box Hill College of Music just out of high school. That experience of actually playing within a large authentic samba group taught me more about the what and how of that style more than any amount of shedding could have done. Since then it has been all jazz and very much the same. Until you're playing in good groups with good people it is hard to understand what it is about exactly.

[Skitch]

Excellent points by NJ and Garvin.

They both require a great deal of study, not just from a musical perspective but also from a historical and cultural perspective, as Garvin mentioned. And they both require a lot of on-the-job traning--that is, you can practice on your own all you want, but it's getting out and playing the music live in context that will lead to mastering it.



Pretty much everything is on the job training, but the difficulty in getting that OTJT is having the opportunities to do so. There fewer latin gigs and latin bands than there are rock gigs and rock bands.


Mike

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