I’ve mentioned some songs and hymns based on pop, folk and dance forms in recent columns: “Cuando el pobre/When the poor ones,” Per Harling’s “You Are Holy, You Are Whole,” “Safe in Your Hands,” and a few others, all based on popular and dance forms of congregational song. Accompanying contemporary and global song in church can sometimes be a lose-lose proposition. If it’s not authentic, if it doesn’t have the right style, why do it at all? If it’s too authentic—and with Christian contemporary music, that means loud–you lose your congregation. So what do you do?
It comes down to rhythm. Of course, a strong sense of rhythm is a critical element in leading hymns, and you can bring a hymn to life if you know that Handel’s “Thine Be the Glory” is a processional, rooted in baroque opera or that “Now the green blade rises” is a stylized French country dance imitating the drone of a cornemuse. In the same way, you understand and play the basic rhythmic vocabulary of a pop-based song, it will come to life.
“Cuando el pobre,” (#762 in The Book of Praise) is a rhythm in a Latin 6/8. Bruce Harding’s tutorials on basic djembe rhythms on Melodic Arts are an excellent place to start. His 6/8 video, “Playing in Six,” offers a primer on the basic 6/8 percussion pattern, but shows how to vary the rhythm with accents and damping.
If you don’t have a djembe, a hand drum in combination with shakers (egg shakers or maracas) or a tambourine will do just fine. The shakers play the 8th notes (and you’ll find that the back-swing of the shaker will cover the 16th “and” rhythms), and the hand drum can play on the 1st and 4th beats. It’s a good idea to play the deep sounds (the centre of the drum) on “1” and the higher sounds (the edge of the drum) on “4”. This will create the strong-weak pattern essential to 6/8.
If you are a guitar player (or have one in your band), a rhythm of “1 2 & 3 & 4 5 6,” with the down-strums occurring on the main beats, and the up-strums will express the rhythmic heart of the song. For guitarists who want to go a step further, this video by Ciro Hurtado is a good introduction to 6/8 rhythms with a Latin feel.
“You are Holy, You are Whole,” (#828 in The Book of Praise) by Per Harling, a Swedish minister and a member of the Global Praise team of the United Methodist denomination in the U.S. This samba is filtered through a European sensibility, but most people think that Rev. Harling nailed it. The lyric expresses not simple devotion but the challenging and deeply biblical thought that God is “always ever more than we ever understand.” The sophisticated rhythm of the samba fits very well with this theology. There are three elements to the rhythm of this song: the characteristic syncopated chord rhythms on guitar or piano, the clave pattern and an 8th-note pattern played on egg-shakers or maracas.
For guitarists, Rick Udler’s video can be a good place to begin. It has two parts, and he distinguishes early samba from more sophisticated later patterns and harmonic vocabulary. The rhythms can be adapted to keyboard playing.
Key to a Latin sound is the clave pattern. I find that the 2-3 pattern, rather than the 3-2 clave works better with the melody. You can learn clave basics from here. The second video is a little more advanced.
If you add shakers playing a basic 8th note flow, these three elements will give you a solid rhythmic framework for the song. Note that, even if you don’t want to be a percussionist yourself, trying out the rhythms will give you insight into how drummers think, and help you be a better leader of an ensemble. Also, thinking of your instrument as a percussion instrument is an excellent way to add texture to your playing.
And here’s a link to more information on the Global Praise programme of the United Methodist Church.
Finally, if you find this information helpful, or even if you know someone who does, let me know. If you’re already beyond Rhythm 101, then as Kurt Kaiser once wrote, pass it on.
