Total Drummer

The Abakwa drum rhythm is a really fun polyrhythmic pattern that is often found within the Afro Cuban six eight rhythms today. It derives from the  secret Abakuá society found in Cuba with roots in Western African culture, where they use their own language and music.

This Abakwa drum rhythm takes the influence of rhythms within this music and it's evolution through Cuban music arriving at something on the drumkit that is a real independence challenge. So be warned, this rhythm is hard. But it is really fun, sounds cool and gives us lots of creative options when  improvising or coming up with new groove ideas for songs. So it is well wroth spending time on.

As we are feeling this over six eight, we have six eighth notes in a bar. The core feature of this rhythm is the four note grouping which consist of three notes being played and then one rest. For this four note grouping to resolve over a six note bar it takes two bars to reach a common denominator of both four and six (twelve beats).

Once we have this concept down we can move on to playing rhythms with the other limbs that create that challenging but exciting polyrhythmic feel.

In this lesson you get the full video breakdown, sheet music and an MP3 practice track.