illy B: Riddim- Claves of African Origin

CallyGull · Tadpole Joined: 13 Aug 2007 Posts: 19

I have just begun studying African Riddim through a marvelous teacher by the name of Billy Martin. I'm not his student, but only studying his book and cd entitled Riddim- Claves of African Origin. It is simply amazing. The theme of the book is to bring to you the accents from the original origin of rhythm. For example, (use any tempo you prefer) using a 12 count to allow for 2's, 3's, 4's, 6's, 7-8, and so on, he has provided thousands of accented counts like this-
x * x * x * * x * x * x <> x * x x * x * x * x x *
The way you go about reading this would be to count through each symbol, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,ect. accenting on the x marks. So the first would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, ect. This is wonderful practice for hand percussions as well as on set. He goes into much more depth adding the four limbs among these bass accents creating a very, very difficult practice. Check it out by typing "Riddim Claves" into google. I would post the link but I'm new and I don't have permission, but with that search, his sight is the 1st one I have learned so much already, and I have only been on it for about a week.

Cally