Brazilian music is famous worldwide — from bossa nova, to choro, to samba.

Bossa is cool, choro is amazing, but my favorite things about samba is that despite being “pop music” it still has complex rhythms and harmonies.

My top favorite thing is the prevalence of the 7 stringed guitar and their use of counterpoints (i.e., parallel melodies).

I love how what (I think) started as guitarists just playing harmonies, turned into them improvising bass lines and counterpoints every once in a while, which eventually became them doing MOSTLY counterpoints and bass lines and barely playing the harmony lmao.

These bass lines and counterpoints, from what I understand, are often times arpeggiations of the chords and so forth, but they add such an amazing effect to the music.

Examples:

  • nn__00
    2·
    13 hours ago

    Same for me. I’ve been playing drums for over 13 years. And progressive bands are the most enjoyable music to play for me. Those time changes and polyrhythms seem complex when you first listen to them. But once I get it, it gets stuck in my brain. You can hear new details you never appreciated before.

    I love meshuggah. And they play most of the times two songs with different time signatures. The drummer is playing both of them at the same time, bottom half playing along with the bass and top half with rhythm guitars.

    • HelixDab2
      1·
      12 hours ago

      I will always regret not learning to play drums; my parents insisted that I learn clarinet instead. (My brother got to play drums though. Bastard.) Oh well. I have too many hobbies to try and add another one at this point. :)