Samba Arrangement

"A single technical definition could not accurately express what Samba truly is." Uribe E. (1994) The Essence of Brazilian Percussion and Drum Set: With Rhythm Section Parts ; Rhythms, Songstyles, Techniques, Applications: London, Alfred Music Publishing p.16 
Brazil is famous for the carnival festivals where thousands parade the streets of the Rio De Janeiro dancing to samba rhythms. Samba's interlacing rhythms are made up of several different drums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQLvGghaDbE (YouTube, 2013)
As a group we all participated in a Samba arrangement. There were big drums, little drums, tiny drums all in the Samba variety. We were all given a score based on what drum we had which we had to sight read and play our individual parts altogether in the group. However we had to come up with our own way of putting it altogether! 

Firstly we appointed a conductor which at first no one wanted to put themselves forward for, but Amy volunteered. This ended up with everyone talking over each other and inputting ideas at the same time which was chaotic. Abi eventually stepped in and took on the roll and incorporated everyone's ideas. We started off by gradually adding all the instruments into the piece with their different rhythms and then adjusting the dynamics from soft to loud. I had a little drum solo in it which I was happy about. We ended the piece by getting all the instruments to drop out gradually and then all come back in together all at once and then finish at the same time which I think was really effective. This task showed me how important it was to listen to each other, work as a team and really concentrate on everyone as well as myself to keep in time. We performed the piece to a few lecturers and got some amazing feedback which was great. We could even take that piece further and perform it locally if we wanted to.
CMU105 Musicianship 1A : Percu-Dance by Curly Fries