Brazilian · baiao · 2/2 straight

Baião

110 bpm Loop: all
16ths
Clave
Piano
Guitar
Bass

Mixer

Keyboard

Strums

1
↓↑↓↓↑↓
2
↓↑↓↓↑↓

Baião, the dance of Brazil's north-east (Luiz Gonzaga's music; Hermeto, Egberto and most Brazilian jazz use it). The core is the zabumba figure: in each half-bar, a low stroke on the beat, another a dotted eighth later, and a high stroke on the and-of-2 — "x . . x . . x .", a 3-3-2 grouping of sixteenths. The bass doubles it (root, root, fifth), the left hand doubles the bass, and the chords land on strokes two and three, never on the downbeat — that is what makes baião lean forward.

The feel: compare with the son montuno — the same 3-3-2 "tresillo" is at the bottom of both, but here it is in sixteenths over a 2-feel, and the harmony is modal (a dominant chord that goes to the flat VII and back rather than resolving).

Listen for the triangle: the percussion layer's straight eighths stand in for its constant sixteenths.

Practice: bass line alone until the dotted-eighth stroke is exactly in time (it is early, not swung); then chords on strokes 2 and 3 only. Authored from standard practice — no transcribed source in the workspace.

Sources

  • standard practice (zabumba/bass baião figure); no transcribed source

Keyboard

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