I'm fascinated by what I call the Five Sisters patterns.  What I mean by Five Sisters are the five notes you can commonly arrange in an 8-beat bar by playing 2 notes, 2 notes, and 1 note interspersed with spaces.

Obviously, you can rearrange this in a number of different ways.

In the simple list above (which can keep going) I've not only cycled though the list starting on the first of each set of beats, but for the last "Split" one, the first note of the pattern is the second note of the first 2-2-1.

So the simplest form of music making - or rhythm making, if you will - is just by combining some of these patterns together.  For example, one of the most basic ways to use these rhtyhms is to get 2-3 people, each clapping one of the different patterns, at the same time.

Things get even more interesting when you begin to stress or accent different parts of these patterns.  (See my Five Sisters pattern for buckets.)  And at that stage, we begin to see that these patterns are the basis for a hell of a lot of rhythms around the world.

Below are some of the most basic forms of several Carribean rhythms.  They all follow the same basic pattern, but are all played very differently, often on different instrumentation and tones.  (And most are swng as well, but that's another story).

OK, so you want more?  I took some brief dumbek lessons a while back, and while the asymmetric hand drumming style totaly messed with me, the patterns were awfully familiar.  I'll use the classic "dum" and "tek" verbal-style notation.

Of course, in all examples above there are variations and fills.  For example you will almost never hear the dumbek patterns played this simply - Middle Easter / North African drummers tend to fill these patterns up a lot.  Nonetheless, the root pattern - often the beginner pattern itself - is essentially the same for all of these.

As a beginner drummer, these patterns are very fun to experiment with.  Going through the dumbek patterns with any sort of drum that has a high and low sound (or, say, a bucket and drumsticks) will give you a solid repertoire already.

These are a list of the classic clavés for Cuban music, plus what is commonly referred to as the "Brazilian clavé".

Notes:

• This is a very basic reference point.  Much more detailed info elsewhere (Wikipedia / UK Salsa - Merengue Society)
• Rumba clavé's third note is pushed one 8th note past the regular 3/2 son clavé. (Compare 2-n to 2-a).
• A lot of samba-reggae uses the rumba clavé pattern for the drums.
• Brazilian clavé is a very generic bossa nova clavé.  It's identical to 3/2 son clavé except the last note is pushed back one 8th note (compare 4 to 4-1).

This is the basic pattern for Typhoon, a drum-n-bass inspired rhythm. Note the bell does not begin with a pickup.

This is the slow syncopated rhythm we use to balance Typhoon. When we are drumming really fast for a long time in parades, it's nice t come back to this to take a break.

Note: This is played at half-speed of Typhoon - and swung if you can. :-)

This is basic rhythm found in a lot of cultures that we use as a base for several variations.

This is our base 6/8 rhythm. It's a hybrid (of course) of several existing 6/8 rhythms. It pushes heavily on the last two beats in a 4/4 count.

I created this rhythm based off of a simple arrangement of short repeating patterns. The five sisters are the five notes played in different intervals - you can add several more layers to this to diminishing (in my opinion) effect. I was aiming for somehting of the hyper-fast West African 2/4 rhythms; giving the call-and-response accents makes this a 4/4, but still feels incredibly fast.

Notes:

• The first note of the bass is a flam with both bass and stick.
• The "touch" (t) of the bucket is on the bucket base, but off the center to give it a softer tone.