Composer
From a rhythmical approach, I started singing, playing, and writing new patterns. Very often I would come up with an idea and immediately record it on my phone as a voice memo, so I could experiment with it later in the day.
Compositional methods
Some of the methods used during the composition process were:
- Spontaneous recording of musical ideas in the form of voice memos.
- Rhythmic motif development: starting with small patterns and refining them through repetition and variation.
- “Rhythm-comes-first” approach: most of my ideas come from rhythm. Often, melodic ideas came while playing drums or congas in the practice room.
- Consult other instrument players about the technical features of their instrument like range, dynamics, touch, extended techniques, etc.
- Music software tools such as GarageBand and Ableton Live to record multiple layers, facilitating play-along sessions and generating new ideas.
- Listen back to the ideas recorded and rehearsals to analyze and make possible changes to the composition.
- Play along with recordings of African drumming from Benin, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal.
- Play with other musicians to brainstorm and develop ideas collectively.
- Write melodic and rhythmic ideas with characteristics of music found in Africa and the Americas: experiment with displacement of notes, accents, inversion of patterns, etc.
- Form and structure: initially, my focus on rhythm and smaller details led me to overlook the overall structure of the song. However, as the process continued, I was able to find a balance between these elements and the broader form.
- Feedback from teachers such as Jeff Ballard, James Maddren, and Hans Feigenwinter.
- Writing “one bar” rhythmic phrases and trying to improvise spontaneously.
The following examples will show the process of creating new ideas through constant repetition and experimentation in the practice room. The instruments mainly used were: drumset, conga, cajón, and piano.
Besides the rhythmic displacements and use of figures that already feel familiar, I experimented more with melorhythm:
“melorhythm means that drums differ in the quality of their sound — especially in their “pitch” — and that through variations in the striking technique, differences of pitch can be produced on one and the same drum." (Konaté and Ott 1996, 33)
Rhythm exploration in the practice room
When I first thought about composing something based on the previous 6/8 traditional -and non-traditional- patterns, I wanted to experiment with different time signatures and explore rhythm from different perspectives, using ideas and concepts from the research process.
One of the first experiments I did is shown in the following short ostinato, which I first recorded on my phone.
I began experimenting with parrandera rhythm in 9/8 meter since December 2023. The following audio was taking during a practice session.
A second experiment was done following the concept of melorhythm, utilizing rhythmic elements from previously studied styles. I developed this groove through repetition, first recording the drum part in GarageBand and then looping it to create a complementary part on congas and eventually other instruments. Later, I shared these ideas with Jeff Ballard and James Maddren, who provided valuable suggestions and feedback for further improvement.
I was inspired by Jeff Ballard’s drum lessons, where we frequently listened to drumming music from Benin and Senegal. We learned specific rhythms such as zinli and houèdè by ear, and also "jammed" together to explore various possibilities within (or outside) the groove. I found it particularly interesting that when we transcribed some rhythmic patterns of houèdè, each of us wrote it down differently. This not only highlights the complexity of these rhythms but also illustrates how individual perception affects the way we hear them.