Brazil music trip.

Well, hi there,
In my last post I explained a little bit about the plans that Matthias and I have. Next year in october and november we are going to travel to Brazil to film and record rhythms and techniques from Brasil.
Our focus will be on the rhythms from Bahia and the beautiful pandeiro.
In the past weeks we have practiced our camera work and working together. So we filmed a choroconcert in Rotterdam, which was fun to do! The purpose is working as a team and learning how our camera's work. So when we arrive in Brazil we are not only good percussion players, but also a good filmteam!
Working together with camera's is completely different then in music. Music for Matthias and me comes naturally. We found out that camerawork takes a lot of preparation. To get the same colors, volumes and shots is difficult. I think we made many mistakes, but it is good to see those silly mistakes.... We still have a lot to learn.

We are also trying to do some crowd funding and this is new for us too. Okay, it is important for our project to succeed and here we have to learn too. Let me explain what we are going to do with all the information we get in Brazil.
Matthias and me are both teachers. Matthias teaches on EPM Holanda and I have a percussion school: Sambalanço. We both give workshops on schools and to groups (amateur and professional).
We are going to make 2 different e-books with music, audio, film and music notations. The good thing about e-books is that it is easy to download and to spread all over the world. We will write it in different languages, so it becomes easy to understand.
There will be coming a book about the pandeiro. There are many styles of playing like samba, coco, forro ect. All are with different techniques! So we will travel from Pernambuco to South Brasil to visit the masters on pandeiro with their rhythms and styles.
The other book will be about the Bloco's Afro. The rhythms that are played by: Ilê Aiye, Olodum, Timbalada, Malê Debalê ect.
In both books we will put background information about the history and the development.
Of course Youtube will also be important to share our information and to let people all over the world know what beautiful music is made in Brazil!

We are happy with all the help we can get. If you want to support us you can donate on my website: http://www.michaeldemiranda.nl/tutorials-contents-eng.htm. If you note that it is for the Brasil music trip, it will be fine.

We will keep you informed about our developments! Thanks!
Michael de Miranda.

Blocos Afro from Bahia

Bahia

The last few months I have been working with Matthias Haffner. He is a great percussion player from Germany, living in Rotterdam. Together we made some good lessons about the pandeiro.
Well, we are planning to go to Brasil next year! Matthias is going to help me making a book (and filming, recording) about the Bloco Afro in Bahia!!! Bloco means group.
In Bahia you have a lot of good groups like: Olodum, Ilê Aiyê, Muzenza, Timbalada, Malê Debalê ect. They all play very nice rhythms, but unfortunately there is still no music book with the beautiful rhythms they play.
There are good books about samba's, but the samba-reggae's, afoxés, Ijexá ect. in the styles of the Blocos? I haven't found them yet.
So, this is what I want to do, write a book about these Blocos!
Next year in October and November we are going for 2 months to learn, study and write down their music!
Matthias has also an other goal, he wants to make a documentary about pandeiro players, old and young ones. There are many different styles of playing. Of course samba is famous, but you also have the forro-styles and Coco and more. To see and film the different players we will go to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Pernambuco ect. So, we will travel through Brasil with our camera's and recording equipment!!
We have 1 year to prepare ourselves. We already have some good contacts in Brasil, but we need more. We both have to study our Portugese.... We have to learn to be a good cameraman (we start next week with this) and of course we need money. We understand it will be expensive, so we have to do crowd funding and raise money in other ways.

We are really looking forward in doing this and of course if you have some good advice or tips for us, let us now. We can use all the help we can get!!

I'll keep you posted on the developments!

Samba music.

It was 2 months ago that I received a mail from a producer in Brazil. The producer first gave me some compliments about my Youtube channel and I'm always happy when people enjoy my video's! That's why I make the lessons...
Anyway, he asked me if I could make 6 arrangements for samba in different styles. He mentioned samba schools like Mangueira, Salgueiro, Mocidade ect. The duration of the compositions had to be 4 minutes.
I was really surprised that he came to me with this, because he is living in Sao Paulo and in Sao Paulo you have lot of composers, percussion players, batucada groups and studio's! So why me? Of course I was really glad that a Brazilian producer came to a Dutch guy to ask him to record Brazilian music. But it funny if you think about it.
He gave me 2 weeks to complete it! So, for 2 weeks I lived in my studio, writing, recording and mixing samba!! The first 4 arrangements came quick, I had enough ideas to make nice music, but the last 2 (when you ran out of ideas) were more hard work! I was looking in books, watching youtube and so on, to get ideas and making the last pieces. In the end I even put berimbao in samba music! And it sounded great!
After 2 weeks I couldn't hear any samba anymore and this was during the carnival!!!!

It was a relief when I finished the job. I send the music to Brazil and luckily the producer was very happy! At this time he is making dance video's of it, which will be posted on websites. He will send me the end result and perhaps I'll post it here!
Now it's time for some Cuban percussion!!